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Imagine This: Suburban Safe Routes to School
New Director Outlines Vision

By Melody Geraci

When I started at Chicagoland Bicycle Federation as the new Safe Routes to School director, my expectations were for a mostly nuts-and-bolts position of organizing in-school safety training for kids with some other accompanying activities.

But I quickly discovered that there is much more at stake involving SRTS (as well as the fact that I can wear slippers in the office - yes!).
It's a vision thing. Really.

Imagine a generation of young people receiving routine, institutionalized biking and pedestrian safety training several times throughout their school career. Imagine those young people growing up to make informed choices about their own transportation.

Imagine communities where intentional safe passage for not only school kidsbut for all non-motorized traffic is the norm.

You may say I'm a dreamer, but I'm not the only one ... just kidding.

CBF is serious about its commitment to the future of Safe Routes to School. SRTS is an international initiative designed to encourage, educate, engineer and enforce safe, non-motorized passage for kids to and from school and within their communities. The appeal of Safe Routes to School lies in its multiple applications to problems facing today's youth. Kids currently face an overall decrease in daily physical activity, poorer air quality, higher rates of childhood overweight and obesity, riskier traffic conditions and a loss of independence skills development. The common denominator: an over-reliance on automobile travel. Getting kids out of the back of the family car and onto the sidewalk can substantially better their own quality of life as well as that of their fellow citizens and community.

In the United Kingdom, Canada, and throughout the U.S., Safe Routes programs are getting more kids to bike and walk to school and are directly impacting the issues of traffic safety, childhood health and environmental quality. CBF believes that Safe Routes to School is a vital programming strategy in transforming Chicagoland's transportation paradigm, one school at a time. We're up for the challenge, and are poised to expand on the important groundwork we've accomplished through our Safe Routes program since 2001.

All this, and more ... with comfy feet.

Melody Geraci is the Chicagoland Bicycle Federation Director of Safe Routes to School