After 15 years of Safe Routes to School investments, more Portland kids are walking, biking, or scootering to school than being driven in the family car. Graph: Portland Bureau of Transportation via Bike Portlandfalse
But here's some great evidence that with intentional effort, cities can reverse the trend and make walking and biking to school popular again. Michael Andersen at Bike Portland lifted the above graph from a recent survey by the Portland Bureau of Transportation. It shows that after 15 years of Safe Routes to School investments, biking or walking (or scootering) to school continues to gain momentum.
Andersen writes:
Among Portlanders in kindergarten through fifth grade, walking, biking and otherwise rolling to school became more common than traveling in the family vehicle sometime around 2010 and has more or less kept climbing since.
If the trend continues, more than half the city’s primary schoolers will be walking, biking, skating or scootering to school by 2025 or so.
It’s worth noting that riding in a car isn’t the only thing becoming less common; riding a school bus has been, too...
Coincidentally, the news comes just as the For Every Kid Coalition delivers a big bundle of testimony to Metro in favor of creating a regional Safe Routes program. The coalition’s $15 million ask would include a bit for instructional classes (that the Bicycle Transportation Alliance might teach), but mostly for biking and walking-friendly infrastructure improvements to the streets immediately surrounding Portland-area schools.
Portland voters will also have an option to give their own booster shot to these efforts in May when they consider a 10-cent gas tax hike that would send a large share of its proceeds to biking and walking upgrades to streets near Portland schools.
Elsewhere on the Network today: The Bike Coalition of Greater Philadelphia reports that Mayor Jim Kenney's $300 million public spaces and infrastructure plan will "focus on equity and fairness." Seattle Bike Blog says families are pushing back after Sound Transit banned cargo bikes on light rail. And in other new from Bike Portland, Oregon is phasing out "Share the Road" signs.
Mayor Thao Tweets "It's time to reach a critical juncture where tragedies don’t catalyze improvements." But when and how will we know if the city has really reached that point and is serious about safety for all road users?