The 2nd National Safe Routes to School Conference is being co-presented by the National Center for Safe Routes to School and the Safe Routes to School National Partnership.  The conference host agency, the Bicycle Transportation Alliance, is currently soliciting presentation and poster proposals for the conference, which will be held August 19-21, 2009 at the Hilton Portland & Executive Tower in Portland, Oregon.  The deadline for submission is February 2, 2009.

The Safe Routes to School Movement

Safe Routes to School is an international movement with the goal of making it safe, convenient and fun for children to bicycle and walk to school on a daily basis.  An increase in walking and bicycling improves community and personal health, benefits the environment, increases safety, and helps to decrease traffic and congestion around schools.  The most successful programs incorporate the five E’s: 
Education, Encouragement, Engineering, Enforcement and Evaluation.

Safe Routes to School works to reverse the decline in children walking and biking to school.  In 1969, approximately 50% of children walked or bicycled to school; 87% of children living within one mile of school did so.  Today, fewer than 15% of schoolchildren walk or bicycle to school.  As a result, kids today are less active, less independent, and less healthy. Parents driving their children to schools can generate as much as 20% to 30% of morning traffic.  Additionally, traffic-related crashes are the number one cause of death and major injury for U.S. children ages 1 to 17.

Conference Program and Areas of Focus

Safe Routes to School programs exist across the nation and vary in range from mature programs to those that are just starting.  The programmatic themes for this year’s conference have been organized with the diversity of interests in mind in order to deliver the most relevant message to the most pertinent audience.

Themes

• Transportation infrastructure and safety
  • Targeting engineers, professionals, and others to learn most relevant and cost-effective infrastructure strategies to make children and families safe and comfortable while traveling by bike and foot.
  • In-conference track that emphasizes the built environment and safety education for all road users
  • Mobile workshops to see SRTS infrastructure projects and other infrastructure innovations
• Empowering families and youth
  The conference will provide workshops and trainings on programs and research that are used to engage and empower youth and families
  • Targeting parents, youth, and organizers to expand SRTS programs in their schools and communities
  • Presentations on community engagement that serve a variety of age ranges – information and resource needs for elementary school children differ than those of high school students
  • Youth involvement at the conference that includes a half-day leadership workshop
  • Family biking and walking parade to celebrate safe routes
• Education and encouragement program development
  • Targeting education and program service providers to learn about program basics and best practices in the field
  • Bicycle, pedestrian, and other safety curriculum concepts and sharing opportunities
• Health and Evaluation
  • Targeting health care practitioners, health professionals, program managers, and interested persons with a pre-conference training on August 18th that will offer continuing medical education credit
  • In-conference track that shows how Safe Routes to School can provide evidence-based impacts on personal, community, and climate health
• Growing the SRTS movement
  • Targeting interested people and professionals that are working on, or are interested in, growing support and resources to accomplish SRTS work.
  • Communication and marketing techniques
  • Collaboration
  • Policy work at the state and local level to leverage additional resources
  • The reauthorization of Safe Routes to School in the federal transportation bill

Framework:

The SRTS conference will offer standard 90-minute workshops, as well as innovative, 180-minute interactive training opportunities (back-to-back 90-minute sessions) that allow for more in-depth discussion, and hands-on events.

Though there is the opportunity to provide training and workshops to a universal audience, we encourage presenters to focus their message on a single age group (K-5, middle school, high school) and/or a specific geographic location (urban, suburban, rural) to effectively meet the diverse needs of participants.

In addition to the age and geographic breakout, presentations can be framed as either “SRTS 101” or “SRTS Advanced” in order to give conference attendees the opportunity to participate in breakout sessions most attuned to their needs.  For example, participants who are new to the movement will benefit from learning the history and organization of SRTS, while more advanced organizers will benefit from higher-level logistics, questions, and issues.

Within this framework, there are opportunities to touch on a multitude of subjects within the different themes.  Though not limited to the following list, key subjects include:

Who is eligible to submit a presentation?

The Bicycle Transportation Alliance, organizer and host of the 2009 National Conference, is accepting proposals for presentations and posters from a wide variety of participants.  In addition to addressing the different topics described above, we are seeking to include local, state and federal perspectives in the portfolio of choices.  Any individual, organization, business, non-profit or public agency that is involved with Safe Routes to School and can demonstrate success with their experience is invited to submit a proposal for presentation and posters.