PBOT Safe Routes to School

Spring break is next week — and kids will be traveling on our streets at different times than usual.
 
We partner with schools across Portland to help thousands of students learn how to travel safely. But we all have a role to play.

- Slow down and avoid distractions
- Take care when backing up
- Use extra caution in low light
- Follow traffic rules
- Yield to pedestrians
- Watch for people walking, biking, and rolling

Community-based organizations are key-partners in this work. Slavic Community Center of NW, through funding from the Oregon Department of Transportation, is helping deliver transportation safety education for Russian-speaking youth. 
 
This month, their team led community walks for Russian-English dual-language immersion classes at Kelly Elementary School. Students explores their neighborhood while learning about pedestrian safety, crossing skills, and how street design supports safe travel. 
 
Tap the link in our bio to learn more about transportation safety education.

Meet some of the people that help Portland kids and families travel to and from school safely (baby edition).

The Safe Routes to School program at the Portland Bureau of Transportation is a partnership between the city, schools, neighborhoods, community organizations, and other government agencies. It helps students and their families walk, bike, and roll to and from school and around their neighborhoods. Through education, engagement, and infrastructure improvements like crosswalks, speed bumps, and stop signs, Safe Routes to School helps make it easier, safer, healthier, and more fun for students and families to travel through their neighborhoods. Programs like this help decrease traffic congestion, reduce the impact of climate change, and encourage positive physical and mental wellbeing.

Safe Routes to School currently serves more than 100 high, middle, elementary, K-8, and K-12 schools across five Portland school districts — Portland Public, David Douglas, Parkrose, Centennial, and Reynolds. 

These are our goals:
1. No child is involved in a serious traffic crash on their way to or from school
2. Every child who wants to walk, bike, roll, or take transit to school knows how to do so safely
3. The community understands how Safe Routes to School reduces congestion and the impacts of climate change

Don't get us wrong. We believe whole-heartedly that everyone can bike year-round. But sometimes nothing is better than when it's mid-January, not a cloud in the sky, and the warm sun battles your face against the 40-something degree temps. It's pure bliss.

Our Safe Routes to School team works every month of the year to bring bike safety education to more classrooms across Portland. We trained 28 new educators last year to become transportation safety experts for their school community — helping us expand our reach beyond what we would be able to do through direct education between our staff and students alone. This creative strategy allowed more than 3,300 students to take part in bike safety education last school year alone.

Don’t get us wrong. We believe whole-heartedly that everyone can bike year-round. But sometimes nothing is better than when it’s mid-January, not a cloud in the sky, and the warm sun battles your face against 40-something degree temps. It’s pure bliss.    Our Safe Routes to School team works every month of the year to bring bike safety education to more classrooms across Portland. We trained 28 new educators last year to become transportation safety experts for their school community — helping us expand our reach beyond what we would be able to do through direct education between our staff and students alone. This creative strategy allowed more than 3,300 students to take part in bike safety education last school year alone.    Tap the link in our bio to learn more about Safe Routes to School.