Implementation
Implement the CAN Goes to School Program and work with local organizations, such as Civic Thread (formerly WALKSacramento), to improve the safety of children traveling to school by walking, biking, or riding in a vehicle. Additionally, the County will include analysis of safe routes to school within the Active Transportation Plan and will factor it in to the prioritization of improvements in that plan. Safe Routes to School projects may be eligible for funds from the VMT mitigation program in GHG-11.
Timeframe: Near term
GHG Reduction Potential: Not quantified
Sector: Vehicles - On-Road
Target Indicator: Participation in CAN Goes to School Program and update of the Active Transportation Plan to include safe routes to school.
Status of Implementation
The Department of Transportation completed an update to the Active Transportation Plan in 2022 that included safe routes to school.
The Department of Transportation also seeks discretionary grants for bicycle and pedestrian infrastructure funding, oftentimes around schools. Most recently, the Department was successful in securing funding for bicycle and pedestrian infrastructure directly serving the following six schools in unincorporated Sacramento County in the San Juan and Sacramento City Unified School Districts: Thomas Edison Elementary, Howe Elementary, Fern Bacon Middle, Nicholas Elementary, Pacific Elementary, and Ethel Baker Elementary School.
Through a consultant, the Department of Transportation also coordinates and implements a non-infrastructure Safe Routes to School program in these six schools. The program objectives are to:
Encourage walking and rolling (i.e. use of bicycles, wheelchairs, scooters, skateboards) to school and in the community.
Promote safe practices amongst students and their families walking, rolling, and driving to and from school in order to prevent collisions.
Teach students and their families how to maintain a bicycle.
Provide mobile bicycle repair and tips on repair.
Address concerns of crime safety in the trip to school through a Safe Passages program.
Evaluate numbers of students using various modes for the trip to school before and after the program.
Updated 11/9/2023
