Safe Routes to Schools & Parks

We are looking to build partnerships with existing biking and walking programs to the schools within the neighborhood. Please contact Brock Howell at brock@bikehappycascadia.com if you are interested.

Background

State law authorizes cities and school districts to establish 20 mph zones within 300’ of any marked crosswalk leading to any school or playground. These zones may be enforced with a traffic camera, and an infraction results in a higher penalty but does not go on the owners driving record.

Of Seattle’s 113 public schools, only 14 have school zones enforced using traffic cameras. None are in Green Lake or Wallingford.

SDOT’s Safe Routes to School Program supports both physical improvements to calm traffic near schools and programmatic efforts to encourage students to walk and bike to school. Some funding for SDOT’s Safe Routes to School Program comes from the traffic cameras.

GLWSS Programs

We would like to build relationships with existing school programs that support students walking and biking to schools. We imagine there are opportunities for fun activities, knowledge sharing, education, and advocacy for improvements to make our streets safer , to encourage physical activity, and facilitate learning.

GLWSS Advocacy

Nearly every childhood seems to include the freedom and emancipation of learning how to ride a bike and the adventures it enabled.

Unfortunately, our streets seem to have become increasingly unsafe due to dangerous driving. From 1969 to 2009, the percentage of children walking or biking dropped 35 percentage points.

We believe in better neighborhoods, where kids can play hoops on our streets, where kids can walk and bike to the park, and where most kids get to school under their own power.

That’s why we support expanded school zones and safe routes to schools programs. Here’s what we’d like to see:

  • 20 mph zones designated for all streets around all schools and parks.

  • Traffic camera enforcement at every school crosswalk and most park crosswalks.

  • Streets adjacent to schools and parks engineered with curb bulbs, speed humps, and protected bike lanes for vehicles to travel at 20 mph.

  • Robust bicycle education in every 3rd-5th and 6th-8th grade school.

  • Organized biking & walking trains in every school.

  • Recreational cycling programs in Lincoln High School.

  • Secure indoor bike rooms to park bikes at every school.

  • Two-way protected bike lane ringing all of Green Lake Park.

  • Two-way protected bike lane along the western edge of the Lower Woodland Park playfields parking lot.