School Initiatives

FOR SCHOOL CHILDREN

Bicycling and walking initiatives to benefit school children have become one of the most popular ways of causing these community improvements. One reason is that in many industrialized nations dominated by car travel, an entire generation has grown up without knowing the freedom of traveling by their own power. Many of the officials who possess the power to implement policies and increase funding for bicycling and walking are alarmed by this fact because bicycling or walking to school was an important part of their own childhood.

The frightening realization here is that more and more officials from that earlier generation are retiring, replaced by people who have no personal connection to bicycling and walking. Fortunately, the concept of Safe Routes to Schools and other school initiatives are gaining momentum, and not a moment too soon!

Find lots of great resources on these sites:

• U.S. - National Center for Safe Routes to School: www.saferoutesinfo.org
• U.S. - Safe Routes to School Partnership www.saferoutespartnership.org
• U.K. - Sustans’ school initiatives 
• Denmark - Odense Safe Routes to Schools results.

FOR UNIVERSITY STUDENTS

University bicycle initiatives range from bike loaner programs (see the Community Bike Program section on our Bike Shops page) to courses that teach students how to mold communities into places where people want to ride bikes.

Unfortunately, the only full curriculum we have found available is from the US Federal Highway Administration. We have received good reviews about it as a nice basic overview course.

Please also look at the course outlines that Professor John Pucher offers at Rutgers University: http://policy.rutgers.edu/faculty/pucher/

Bike Emory at Emory University is an excellent model for getting more university students riding bikes instead of driving: http://www.bike.emory.edu/

Source: www.OneStreet.org