Kid's Area! CT Safe Routes to School

Connecticut's Safe Routes to School (SRTS) Program

Getting Started

Starting a SRTS program is an opportunity to make walking and bicycling to school safer for children and to increase the number of children who choose to walk and bicycle. On a broader level, SRTS programs can enhance children’s health and well-being, ease traffic congestion near the school and improve air quality and improve community members’ overall quality of life. The main component of a successful SRTS program is a SRTS Plan.

A SRTS Plan is a written document that outlines a school and community’s intentions for making travel to and from school more sustainable and safe. This is accomplished by reducing individual car trips, increasing walking and bicycling and by making the walking and bicycling environment safer.  The Plan is created through a team-based process that identifies the barriers to active transportation and formulates a set of solutions to address them.  A SRTS Plan is developed in consultation with the whole school community and is an important tool in improving student and community health, safety, traffic congestion and air quality. It is the first step in preparing schools to make important changes in their school travel environments and can lead to creating livable communities.

The following steps are meant to provide guidance by providing a framework for establishing a SRTS program based on what has worked in other communities. Some communities may find that a different approach or a reordering of these steps works better for them.

  1. Bring together the right people: Identify people who want to make walking and bicycling to school safe and appealing for children. Sharing concerns, interests and knowledge among a variety of community members with diverse expertise can enable groups to tackle many issues.
  2. Hold a kick off meeting and set a vision: A goal of the first meeting is to create a vision and generate next steps for the group members.
  3. Gather information and identify issues: Collecting information can help to identify needed program elements and provide a means to measure the impact of the program later.
  4. Identify solutions: Solutions to identified issues will include a combination of education, encouragement, engineering and enforcement strategies. Safety is the first consideration.
  5. Make a plan: It doesn't need to be lengthy. Include encouragement, enforcement, education and engineering strategies. Create a time schedule for the plan.
  6. Get the plan and people moving: Hold a kick off event starting with a fun activity. Participate in International Walk to School Day or celebrate a Walking Wednesday.
  7. Evaluate, adjust and keep moving: To sustain the program, consider building additional program champions and letting people know about your successes.


Connecticut Safe Routes to School Master Plan Guidelines [ PDF ] [ TXT ]

Sample Safe Routes to School Master Plan:
Norwalk, CT: Strawberry Hill Avenue [ DOC ] [ TXT ]

         Sample Plan Surveys: (See SRTS Master Plan Guidelines for updated surveys)
             Classroom Survey [ DOC ] [ TXT ]
             Parent Survey [ DOC ] [ TXT ]