Safe Routes to School? Grants and Experts Help You Get There

With most schools across the country back in action, it’s a good time to put safety at the forefront of our minds when driving near the places where children gather.

If you are a public sector official looking to make a difference in the safety of children making their way to school each day, help is available. Money distributed to states through the federal Safe Routes to Schools (SRTS) program makes its way to counties and communities for safety projects. These projects can range from new walking/biking trails to improved crosswalks and intersections to traffic calming, which uses a variety of design elements to slow vehicles as drivers approach areas that can get busy with pedestrians and bicyclists.

Aaron Brault, planning and conservation director for Sheboygan County in Wisconsin, has seen the benefit of traffic-calming projects. The County and City of Sheboygan worked with staff in our Madison office on a number of traffic-calming projects around the City.

“All the feedback is that the neighborhoods like the improvements,” Aaron says. “It’s slowed traffic down. Speed counts have shown at least a 3 to 5 miles per hour reduction in speed in the traffic-calming areas.”

In Brookfield, Wisconsin, a number of traffic-calming and school safety designs from our traffic engineers in our Waukesha office have been effective at slowing traffic on a busy street in front of the Brookfield Academy prep school, senior traffic engineer Ken Voigt says.

Ayres Associates has designed a number of traffic-calming projects across the nation. Here are pictures of a dozen of our favorite design elements in use.

We would love to hear if you think any of these traffic-calming designs would work in your community to provide safer streets for pedestrians, especially children. Please leave your comments below.