Safe Routes to Schools

E-Newsletter September 2015

www.saferoutestoschools.org

In This Issue

Iwalk Honors Deb Hubsmith

Family Biking to Middle School

Green Sneaker Kicking Off New School Year

New Crosswalks in Mill Valley

Studies confirm Educational Benefits of Walking to School

Keep up with the Nation

Family Biking Workshops

September 19

Brookside School

October 3

Fairfax Library

find out more

Biketoberfest Coming October 17

Biketoberfest is a free celebration of bikes, music, food and family fun

Share Biking Tips

Momentum Magazine is inviting readers to share the back to school biking tips

Like us on Facebook

Unsubscribe

If you do not want to receive the SR2S newsletter but do want to continue to receive MCBC emails please contact wendi@marinbike.org

neighbors on McAllister

Read our September Blog

Neighborhoods Tackle Safety Issues

International Walk to School Day Honors Deb Hubsmith

Safe Routes to Schools is dedicating its biggest event of the year, the International Walk to School Day, on October 7th to the memory of its co-founder, Deb Hubsmith. A Fairfax resident, she passed away on August 18th after a two-year battle with leukemia. She was 46.

Deb was a force of nature; the founding executive director of the Marin County Bicycle Coalition, she launched the first Safe Routes to Schools pilot in Marin County in 2000 along with Wendi Kallins. Safe Routes to Schools extended all over the U.S. thanks to her tireless lobbying in Congress resulting in $1.1 billion for Safe Routes to School in all 50 states. In 2005, she founded the SR2S National Partnership, which boasts 750 partners and has advocacy in states across the nation. We will miss Deb terribly but are grateful to all that she accomplished in her too short life and carry on her work in her memory.

For more on Deb and her life's work go to the MCBC web site

Teaching Skills to the Whole Family

Safe Routes to Schools teaches pedestrian and bicycling skills to students in Physical Education classes throughout Marin. Our Family Biking program offers an additional opportunity for students to learn these skills with the whole family, and they get to experience the delight of riding together in a group while gaining valuable lessons on how to do that safely.

Graduating students from Sun Valley elementary school forged out as a group last August to learn the recommended route to their new school, Davidson Middle School. Organized by parents from the school and led by Safe Routes Licensed Certified Instructors, the ride provided hands on experience to encourage more students to continue the cycling habits formed in elementary school. In fact, bike racks at middle schools across Marin are becoming increasingly full due to the high volume of students who are choosing to bike to school.

The next Family Biking events will be September 19th from 10-noon at Brookside Elementary School at 116 Butterfield Road in San Anslemo and Saturday October 3rd from 10-noon from the Fairfax to the San Anselmo Library.

For more information contact peggy@marinbike.org or go here to register

Small Steps Lead to Big Changes

Green Sneaker Kicking Off the New School Year

Students at ten elementary schools in Marin County are lacing up their sneakers to participate in a new Green Sneaker Challenge, which promotes green travel to school for four weeks. Children participating in the Green Sneaker Challenge receive a colorful backpack tag that is stamped at a welcome table on September 16, 23, 30 and October 7.

A child receives a weekly green sneaker ink stamp on their card if they walk, bike, bus or carpool to school. On the last day of the challenge, the student enters their stamped card into a raffle prize drawing. Prizes include movie passes and ice cream certificates. The purpose of the new challenge is to make green travel to school a fun habit that gets children walking and rolling together at the start of the school year!

To find out more, contact laura@marinbike.org

New Crosswalk Solves Tricky Intersection Crossing

Councilwoman Stephanie Moulton-Peters leading children across new crosswalk

Classes started last Wednesday at Park Elementary School in Mill Valley, and many children - and their parents - used a new crosswalk directly in front of the school that addresses several vexing issues that pedestrians crossing East Blithedale Avenue at Elm Avenue faced for years.

The intersection was redesigned, based on city, school, parent, student, and neighbor input, to add extended curbs, relocate a crosswalk to between the offset Elm Avenue cross-streets, and to provide new traffic signal equipment that allows pedestrians to cross with their own signal phase, i.e., without vehicular traffic turning left or right in front of them. The extended curbs provide more space for pedestrian "queuing" and allow students to wait more comfortably behind the curb.

The design and construction was funded through a Safe Routes to School grant.

One Stop Shop on Important Studies
Do you need information on studies that confirm the connection between physical activity and academic performance? The Safe Routes to Schools National Partnership has compiled a history of these studies highlighting the most important of them. Learn more here