The City of Portland’s Safe Routes to School program has released their first year-end report.

[Download a copy of the Safe Routes to School Year 1 Report (PDF, 1.3MB)]

The federally funded program, which is managed through a partnership between the City of Portland Office of Transportation and the Bicycle Transportation Alliance, will more than double in size (from 8 to 19 schools) for the 2006-2007 school year.

The new K-8 schools added to the roster this year include:

North:

• Rosa Parks
• Chief Joseph

Northeast:

• Faubion
• Sacramento

Northwest:

• Chapman
• Forest Park

Southwest:

• Capitol Hill

Southeast:

• Sunnyside
• Atkinson
• Gilbert Heights
• Kelly

According to the year-end report, last year participating schools saw an average 10% incrase in kids walking to school and a nearly 5% increase in kids biking to school.

According to Robert Ping, who leads the BTA’s Safe Routes to School efforts, they take a comprehensive approach to each school,

“We focus on the Four E’s; education, enforcement, engineering and encouragement. We also work closely with parents and school staff on specific issues they might face. Another big part of our job is to reinforce that walking and biking to school is not dangerous…it’s sad, but I think the media and our society has made many parents uneccessarily fearful of letting their kids out of site.”