Youth in Motion: Maryland

In Maryland the opportunity is available for any school to start its own SRTS program. This statewide initiative was created through legislation in 2001 as a pilot program in two schools and has since been expanded so that every school statewide is able to start a SRTS program with government help.

Beginning in the summer of 2002, the school SRTS teams, local jurisdictions, and the Maryland Department of Transportation (DOT) worked together to pilot SRTS programs in two schools. The primary goals were to reduce the frequency and severity of crashes involving child pedestrians and to increase the number of children who walk or bike to school. The legislation stipulated that schools in Baltimore and a designated county would serve as the pilots. The Baltimore school enrolled approximately 1,100 students in K–6th grades. In Montgomery County a K–5 suburban school in Silver Spring with approximately 750 students was chosen. For both schools, the majority of students were not bused and could be classified as “walkers.”

The school selected in Baltimore was a top priority due to a number of traffic safety problems, including several student-vehicle accidents in front of the school and one student fatality in 2001. A previous child pedestrian safety study found that nearly 60 percent of the students walked to school at least some days, yet the school had serious safety problems related to the lack of a designated drop-off area and its location at the intersection of two major roadways.

In Montgomery County, several schools vied for the chance to be chosen as the pilot site. The pilot school was selected by a task group assembled by the county based on a number of factors, including student age group, Parent Teacher Association, and lack of any recent transportion-related improvements. The school chosen in Silver Spring had many safety issues, such as a lack of sidewalks and curb ramps on neighborhood streets, congestion, poor crossings and sight visibility at the school drop-off area, cut-through traffic and high speeds throughout the neighborhood, and crossings of arterial roadways.

Results
The SRTS committee conducted interviews with program participants including school administrators, parents, Community Traffic Safety Coordinators and transportation officials at each school to assess the impacts and success of the two pilot projects.

All parties interviewed felt the Safe Routes program was “worthwhile” and that it helped to educate students, parents, and teachers about potential transportation and safety issues around the school. Most sensed traffic conditions were slowly improving at the school. However, it was acknowledged that more work needed to be done.

In Silver Spring, the pilot SRTS program led to the creation of a Safe Routes Committee that is seeking to implement Safe Routes programs at additional elementary and middle schools.

Lessons Learned
Each school had advantages and challenges, but the key to each was the participation of the parents who grew to champion the program. The cooperation and support of the school administrations was also key to success.

However, there are challenges and potential pitfalls that still exist for these pilot sites:

Greater efforts must be made to teach parents road, traffic, and pedestrian safety
Communications to parents sent home with students frequently go unread, many parents are not on the Safe Routes e-mail listserv or do not have access to a computer, and many parents do not attend meetings of any kind
Despite efforts and invitations to involve all parents and reach out to community groups, a small core group of parents has been most involved in Safe Routes activities
Difficulties exist in identifying appropriate government agencies to ask for help and secure their involvement
The schools found it hard to get community groups interested in participating in the project even though they were invited to do so on several occasions
While traffic safety was important to both schools, the parents and administration are unable to always devote their full attention to this issue
Transportation agencies were able to implement the lower cost improvements, such as signs and paint, but it was more challenging to implement measures such as road narrowing, median islands, etc.
Program participants found it frustrating that even simple improvements such as striping and signing can take a long time to undertake

Implementation

For each school, teams of key stakeholders were created to implement the program
An extensive needs assessment was conducted at each school to determine the extent of the problems, including the creation of route maps
Students and parents were surveyed to understand the issues and concerns with walking or biking to school
To build support for the program and to gather further input from the school and the community, the Safe Routes to School Team hosted two community workshops and made presentations to neighborhood organizations and community groups
Engineering solutions were addressed by a consultant for roadway design improvements

HOW TO MAKE A ROUTE MAP
The Maryland Bicycle and Pedestrian Advisory Council put together a guide to developing a SRTS program. Within this guide is a helpful section on how to map out appropriate routes and recognize problems that exist along these routes.

1. Be sure to include the following on the Neighborhood Map:

The location of the school
The school district
The surrounding road and path network
The school’s “walk-zone” or “non-transport” limits
The location of student residences
Road names
Names of major destinations (e.g. parks, malls, etc.)

2. On the School Site Map include

Parent and school bus drop-off and pick-up zones
Sidewalks
Immediately adjoining roads, with their configurations
Intersections with traffic signals
Intersections with marked crosswalk
Intersections staffed with crossing guards

3. Other Things to Consider

Always have a north arrow and scale
Make sure there is a master copy
Create a legend
Take advantage of resources in the city planning department and the USGS for help with mapping
Research planned roadway improvements

4. Determine School/Walking Route Condition

List specific locations on the school site and the surrounding streets that need improvements (e.g. lack of sidewalk/damaged sidewalk, corners in need of curb ramps, dangerous crossings, high speed traffic areas)
Note traffic patterns during drop-off/pick-up
Ask children, parents, teachers, and crossing guards to list problems that they are aware of

source: The Maryland Bicycle & Pedestrian Advisory Committee and the Maryland Department of Transportation (2003, July). Evaluation & Final Report. Maryland Safe Routes to School.

Resources
ohbike.org/mbpac
Maryland Bicycle and Pedestrian Advisory Committee promotes bicycling and walking for transportation, recreation, physical fitness, and health

www.mdot.state.md.us
Maryland Department of Transportation

www.walkboston.org
WalkBoston is dedicated to improving walking conditions across Massachusetts. This extensive website contains downloadable versions of their Safe Routes to Schools Toolkit for Communities and Walking for Health & the Environment Curriculum guide