Safe Routes to Schools projects encourage and enable children to walk and cycle to school through a combined package of practical and educational measures. Each school is different, with its own local problems and possible solutions. Developing a School Travel Plan can help ensure the complete situation is considered and that appropriate action is taken. Highway improvements are not however, the only practical measures that can be undertaken to reduce the number of cars doing the school run. Public transport operators, schools and individuals can also make positive changes to the school journey.
Schools play a central role in promoting active, safe and sustainable lifestyles to young people.
Successful Safe Routes to Schools projects need schools to support and reinforce the messages of walking and cycling to school. Practical measures on their own are not enough - education and awareness raising within the whole school community is critical. Each school will have its own set of problems requiring its own local solutions. The aim was to illustrate how co-operative ventures between local authorities, schools and parents could reduce car dependency on the school run. The Danish Experience Twenty years ago Denmark had the worst child pedestrian accident rates in Europe.