Economic Investment and Program Implementation in Communities through Safe Routes to School (SRTS)

This project documents economic investment in communities through the federal Safe Routes to School (SRTS) program and examines the distribution of funds across states, regions, and areas defined by population and demographic characteristics (e.g., percent poverty, educational status).

Yellow bicycle street sign

The SRTS program was added in the 2005 reauthorization of the transportation bill, Safe, Accountable, Flexible, Efficient Transportation Equity Act: A Legacy for Users (SAFETEA-LU). Since its enactment, limited attention has been paid to patterns of distribution of SRTS funds across geographic areas. We develop measures of successful SRTS economic investment and project implementation in low-resource communities based on stated objectives of the SRTS program. We aim to inform local, regional, and national policy for supporting equitable, comprehensive SRTS programs and safe, active environments for youth.

In this project, we also update a previous analysis describing the distribution of federal transportation funding for bicycle and pedestrian projects across states and counties.


Principal Investigator: Angie Cradock, ScD
Funder: Robert Wood Johnson Foundation Active Living Research
Funding Dates: December 1, 2008–June 30, 2011
Contact: Jessica Barrett


Peer-Reviewed Publication

Presentations