Walking School Bus
A walking school bus is a fun and active way to get to school with other people along for the walk. It’s led by responsible adults or young adults, to ensure the walk is safe and that you don’t miss a stop. Set up similarly to a regular bus route, you can have planned time stops and a route so everyone knows what to do. You can also set up a standard meeting place for everyone to meet and walk from there. The National Center for Safe Routes to School has provided a great resource for starting a walking school bus, which can be found here: SRTS Guide: The Walking School Bus: Combining Safety, Fun and the Walk to School
We recommend preplanning/walking the intended route with the participants, at the time you would normally be heading to school. Weather and the time of the year can change the needs you have, such as gloves, hats, coats, or sunscreen, sunglasses, and hats. There are suggested walking routes for many schools in the Treasure Valley and they can be found in the following links. Remember, you don’t have to walk every single day to make this successful, you could pick one day a week or even one day a month to get started. The success on this journey starts with that first step!
Leaders need to recognize safety needs along the route to school and be familiar with the safest ways to cross streets. Remember, you lead by example, so while you may feel safe doing a mid block cross, that is NOT the best practice for any youth who has never driven a car. Young people do not have the ability to determine the rate of speed a motorist is traveling and cannot make proper judgement on crossing time. Your ability as adults to do this is an important lesson for the youth and supplements the work we do in the classrooms across the valley.
Please note, only Boise and West Ada Schools currently have walk zone maps listed, but we’ve provided links to all districts we are working with currently. Please let your district know if you’re interested in having walk zone maps in Canyon County.
Boise School District Walk Zone Maps
Bike Train/Bike Bus
A Bike Train or Bike Bus is a very fun way to ride to school with friends and neighbors. This can help bring safety AND fun to the ride to school and is set up similarly to a regular bus route, with timed stops so you know when to be ready to go. Adult leaders/volunteers are necessary to help with crossings and to keep the group in order, and to share leadership responsiblities. A bike train is successful when you have several leaders so you don’t leave one person leading all of the time.
You can also set up a general meeting spot at someone’s house and provide a final leave time, so no one misses the bus. There are some amazing bike buses around the valley and around the country. If you want to get more information from Safe Routes, send us an email. You can also check out Bike Bus World here, for some very inspiring bike buses. The sky is the limit for this kind of trip and it makes a huge difference in students attitudes and activity every day. (No, you don’t have to do it every single day, but you might want to!)
Here are some great tips from the National Center for Safe Routes to School. This can help you get started on the right path to a very fun bike train. The Wheels on the Bike Go Round & Round | Safe Routes Partnership
Walk and Bike Audits
Walk and Bike Audits are tools to use when you want to find out why people are or are not walking or biking in your area. They’re useful also when you note speeding, lack of sidewalks, or even unusual amounts of bike/walk near misses or crashes. There are many tools to use to do this and we find this information from Safe Routes Partnership, AARP and the League of American Bicyclists to be invaluable in the work we do.