Citation

Traffic Safety Facts Traffic Tech 2009; (368).

Copyright

(Copyright © 2009, National Highway Traffic Safety Administration)

DOI

unavailable

PMID

unavailable

Abstract

The main goal of Safe Routes to School (SRTS) programs is to increase children's walking and biking to school. As the SRTS programs grew, there arose concern that a possible increase in pedestrian and bicycle exposure from these programs could result in an increase in child pedestrian and bicycle-related crashes. Therefore, the goal of this study was to evaluate the safety impact of SRTS programs in the United States. The programs evaluated in this study were established prior to the passage of the Safe, Accountable, Flexible, Efficient Transportation Equity Act: A Legacy for Users (SAFETEA-LU), which sets guidelines for the establishment of SRTS programs. As such, the programs studied are referred to as "legacy SRTS" programs. This Traffic Tech summarizes the results of this study. The results reveal a consistent pattern of declining pedestrian and bicycle crash involvements of elementary school children over the years during which legacy SRTS programs were implemented.

Language: en