Mountain Home leaders learn planning skills
for developing Safe Routes to School

The Idaho Safe Routes to School (SR2S) program held a national course in Mountain Home in September. Attendees included local stakeholders and community leaders who are working together to make walking and bicycling to school safe and routine for local students.

The workshop was designed to help communities establish a common understanding of the comprehensive nature of SR2S that will enable them to identify barriers and implement plans that use a combination of strategies, such as teaching pedestrian and bicycle safety, building sidewalks, working with law enforcement to slow traffic and initiating walking clubs and contests. The course was conducted in Mountain Home as part of a demonstration project funded by the ITD’s SR2S program.

Developed by the Pedestrian and Bicycle Information Center and maintained by the National Center for Safe Routes to School, the one-day course combines safety, health and transportation issues. It was developed through a partnership of funding from the Federal Highway Administration, the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and the Environmental Protection Agency.

Taught by two instructors with technical expertise and experience, it focused on the educational and engineering aspects of an SR2S project.

The Mountain Home course instructors were Chris Danley, from Vitruvian Planning, and Kara Sergile, RN, MPH, of KWS Consulting. The former is a transportation planner who has extensive experience in site assessments and community planning, and Sergile is registered nurse who began volunteering to conduct SR2S education and encouragement efforts at local schools in Glendale, Calif., after witnessing a tragic accident that involved a child pedestrian.

Course highlights:
– Course participants were community stakeholders and partnering state agencies
– Audience was comprised of planners, parents, law enforcement officers, school administrators, transportation engineers, local advocates and community leaders
– Core content was blended with group discussion, field observation and identification of local problems and solutions at East Elementary School


Photos: Kara Sergile explains how to plan and implement the education and encouragement strategies of an SR2S project (top); participants involved in a mapping exercise following a school site assessment led by Chris Danley. In the mapping exercise that followed, participants came up with a list of suggestions that could improve the safety of students who walk and bicycle to school.

Published 10-7-2011