Charlottesville group promotes walking to school, and throughout the community

Date published: 11/14/2004

THE DAILY COMMUTE to school in Charlottesville has taken a different shape in the past three years, thanks to a group called the Alliance for Community Choice in Transportation.

This grass roots volunteer group was founded in 2001, and Safe Routes to School was its first project.

The concept of ensuring safe walking routes to school is popular in Britain, and it is catching on in the United States. A transportation safety award (a grant from the Federal Highway Administration via the Virginia Department of Transportation) provided funds for the program in Charlottesville and paid for part-time staff.

Kids at Greenbrier Elementary School began using the safe routes on April 2, 2003. That first Walking Wednesday was orchestrated by the alliance, along with school and neighborhood organizations.

Every pupil walked to school that day. Those who normally traveled by school bus or rode with a parent were instead dropped off some distance from the school. From there, they walked with adult supervision.

Walking Wednesdays became a permanent feature at Greenbrier Elementary, and some pupils make the supervised walk to school more often, according to Alia Anderson, executive director of the alliance. Volunteer parents provide a supervised walk along established school-bus routes, picking up children along the way, and walking as far as a mile and a half. On some routes, the trip is planned only once a month and on special occasions, but one route offers the walking trip daily.

Since the first Walking Wednesday, the Safe Routes to School program has expanded to another elementary school and to Buford Middle School.

A lot of people, including the school nurse, had noticed a serious obesity problem among the students at Buford Middle School, Anderson said. With a grant from the Virginia Department of Health, the school added pedestrian and bicycle education to its health classes and obtained 25 bicycles for use by the students.

The alliance presented this program to the city of Charlottesville and Albemarle County, and the city plans to include pedestrian and bicycle education in all its physical education classes.

The alliance also promotes safe walking routes in the wider community, providing pedestrian education at Boys and Girls Clubs, to neighborhood groups and at community events such as the Bike Rodeo, said Anderson.

Alliance volunteers also give helmet safety lessons to preschoolers riding tricycles. Safe walking routes to school are included on the Charlottesville mobility map prepared by the alliance.

These efforts have led more people, both adults and children, to take advantage of walking routes for recreation and for basic transportation to get around Charlottesville.

Anderson said Arlington has the only other Safe Routes to School program she knows of in Virginia. There are two in Maryland--one in Baltimore and one in Montgomery County--and one each in Maine and North Carolina. She said there are scattered programs in the middle of the country, and lots on the West Coast, particularly Oregon and California.

For details on the Safe Routes to School Program, send an e-mail to info@transportationchoice.org, write to the Alliance for Community Choice in Transportation at Box 1584, Charlottesville, Va. 22902, or call Alia Anderson, the executive director, at 434/295-6554.

Date published: 11/14/2004