safe routes logoSafe Routes to Schools

E-Newsletter       January 2015
 
In This Issue
Walking School Buses
The Amazing Bike Race
Kent Students' Eco Gift
SRTS gets MTC support
Traffic Playground

  Family Biking and

         Bike Mobile      

 Receive free service on your child's bike and learn valuable skills on biking together

Location:

Mill Valley Middle School black-top

Date:

Friday, March 27, 2015

Bike Mobile:

 2:45 to 5:45pm (pre-registration required)

Family Biking workshop:

 3:30 to 5:30

  Youth Conference
Spare the Air Youth will be holding its second annual Youth for the Environment and Sustainability (YES) Conference Saturday, February 7, 2015, from 10 a.m. to 4 p.m.

Sign up for the Bike Mobile   

Would you like a visit from the Bike Mobile? The Bike Mobile is a remote bicycle repair shop that travels the Bay Area offering free bike maintenance for children's bicycles. If you would like the Bike Mobile to come to your school contact Peggy 

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Sun Valley School is firing up their feet.  Check it out in our new Blog

 

Creating a Safe and Fun Walk to School Culture 

Sun Valley

Volunteer Team Leaders at 34 elementary schools will receive week-by-week instructions on how to organize Walking School Buses.

 

The information will be drawn from the Marin Safe Routes to Schools guidebooks but instead of distributing the whole guidebook, they will receive little bites that will allow them to take on the program one step at a time.

 

Our goal this year is to have every school achieve at least a monthly Walk and Roll to School Day with the ultimate goal of holding weekly events. The Walking School Buses will further encourage more participation as there is safety in numbers and it becomes an enjoyable social activity and fitness practice for kids and parents.

 

If you would like to help organize a Walking School Bus at your school or in your neighborhood contact Laura Kelly  

The Amazing Bus Race

                           

transit

Students from the Terra Linda High School of Environmental Leadership hosted the Amazing Bus Race, Transportation Nation, event on Saturday, December 6.

 

The race followed weeks of preparation with presentations to 120 of their peers on the benefits of using public transit and some tools for using transit. The event had eight teams with 32 student participants.

 

Every team took a minimum of two Marin Transit buses and learned how to use Google Maps to plan for bus routes/times and how to use Day Passes / transit passes. The winning team of four students won GoPro Cameras. Additionally, students used a Spin the Wheel game to educate an estimated 60 community members on Marin Transit while the race was occurring.

 

This program is funded by a Spare the Air Youth grant and Marin Safe Routes to Schools.

Sycamore Avenue in Mill Valley Becomes School Bike Route                           

sharrow

The City of Mill Valley has installed a series of green Shared Lane Use Arrows - better known as "Sharrows" - and "School Routes" signage along segments of Sycamore and Locust Avenues and La Goma Street, which are recognized as routes to Mill Valley Middle School.

 

These sharrows and signage were successfully introduced along Safe Routes to Schools routes in Fairfax in what is now known as the Bike Spine. Mill Valley will be the second city in Marin to develop a designated School Route signage program along a well used corridor.

Gifts of Succulents for Sustainable Actions

 

succulents

 Kent Eco Action Club awarded fellow students with succulents picked from their gardens to give thanks to those who walked/biked/carpooled to school for the earth's sustainability last month. 

 

The club students joyfully planted 200 succulent clippings in cups of soil knowing that they would easily take root - proud of their effort to provide a meaningful gift from the earth to encourage sustainable actions.

 

Succulents are eco friendly plants which thrive in arid conditions with minimal water, so they make perfect gifts for environmentally conscious teens. 

 

Woodlands Market also donated fresh fruit to Kent and gave Bacich generous donations of cocoa, coffee, fruit, bagels and pastries for their neighborhood social to promote walking and biking to school. 

 

Bolstering Support for the Bay Area's Regional Safe Routes to School Program 

In December, the staff from the Metropolitan Transportation Commission (MTC) and the Programming and Allocations Committee proposed extending the Regional Safe Routes to School (RSRTS) program by one year, but at half the funding ($2.7 million as opposed to the current annual allocation of $5 million) to respond to a shortfall in federal funds.

 

Led by the Safe Routes to School National Partnership, advocates weighed in that the RSTS is vital to support the health, safety, and education of children. Commissioners added that the RSTS helps MTC meet its adopted health, safety, and climate change goals.

 

In the end, commissioners voted unanimously to direct MTC staff to make up the $2.3 million shortfall and present options for doing so to the commission within six months as part of a broader discussion of the next cycle of RSTS and One Bay Area Grant funding. More info.

A Traffic Playground that Will Blow Your Mind

  

Move over Bike Rodeo. Students in Copenhageplaygroundn get real life experience in this full blown traffic playground, complete with streets, traffic signals and landscaping. In Denmark cycling is the most common way for children to get to school where 50% of the total population use bicycles for their daily commute.  Read More