3. The Problem
1 in 4 kids is overweight and unhealthy in Oregon
60% kids don’t get any exercise outside of school
47,025 pedestrians died on our streets nation-wide
11. Thank you!
LeeAnne Fergason, leeanne@btaoregon.org
American Heart Association
Asian Pacific American Network of Oregon
Bicycle Transportation Alliance
Coalition For A Livable Future
OPAL Environmental Justice
Oregon Walks
Safe Routes to School National Partnership
Upstream Public Health
And hundreds more individuals and organizations
12. Question:
Who are some community partners that you may want to
partner/engage with around Safe Routes to School?
How will you engage them?
Editor's Notes
Thanks for your time! My name is LeeAnne Fergason from the BTA and the For Every Kid Coalition. I’m going to present on framing Safe Routes to School as a regional approach to problems around health, safety, and equity; Coalition building and the For Every Kid Team; and The For Every Kid Campaign to secure dedicated funding for Safe Routes to School (make sure you sign the petition before you leave!)
Why I’m here: My sister, Ella, has 5 little boys. According to studies, my nephews have a shorter life expectancy than mine and yours. 1 in 3 kids is over-weight and 60% of kids don’t get any exercise out side of school and are at a high risk for heart disease and diabetes. Let’s put a face on these kids. For me its my 5 nephews. I’d have to choose 3 to not get enough exercise and be at risk for health problems, that is a choice I cannot make for my own family. Every kid is someone’s family. A son, daughter, niece, nephew, grandson, grand daughter. We know that our kids are becoming more and more unhealthy, streets are unsafe, and that lower income kids are most at risk
Citations:
1 in 3 kids in the US is obese or overweightSource: Center for Disease Control. http://www.cdc.gov/healthyyouth/obesity/facts.htm.
60% Source: Center for Disease Control. http://www.cdc.gov/mmwr/preview/mmwrhtml/mm5233a1.htm.
70% Source: 2013 Oregon Healthy Teens Survey. http://public.health.oregon.gov/BirthDeathCertificates/Surveys/OregonHealthyTeens/Pages/index.aspx.
2003-2012 number of pedestrian fatalities : Smart Growth America, Dangerous by Design Mar 2014 Report.
http://www.smartgrowthamerica.org/documents/dangerous-by-design-2014/dangerous-by-design-2014.pdf
This map shows the consequences of these health disparities. The dots are schools. The green dots are schools where 50% or more students receive free or reduced lunch. The shades if purple indicated the level of Type II Diabetes in the general population. You can see the direct correlation between Type II Diabetes and Title 1 schools. The heath disparities in our metro area is a big problem.
But this is a problem that we can solve with the 6 components of safe routes to school. Meet Dani.
Dani walks to school daily with other families in her neighborhood, using the crosswalks, sidewalks, and other tools that are provided for her. She does not feel unsafe during her walk, but she does feel the breeze on her face, her muscles working, and her imagination racing as laughs with her friends. She arrives at school able to concentrate better than students who didn’t get morning exercise. She is ready to learn. Dani is also creating habits that could increase her life by 5 years. A complete Safe Routes to School program including education, encouragement, and making the streets safe on average increases walking and biking by 40%.
How our coalition started and where we are going. The For Every Kid Coalition began last summer with community meetings and outreach to partners. Providing funding to partners to create capacity to participate was one helpful tool. In the last several months we have worked to create a structure, values, and a campaign bottom line. Some challenges we faced were a decrease in funding part-way through (decreasing partner capacity to participate) and Coalition work takes time! Making sure to prioritize the health and growth of the coalition is hard! But the benefits are really huge. We’ve been told that the strongest things about this campaign is the coalition (if that doesn’t make you want to put time into a Coalition. I’m not sure what will!). And we are making the ask and bottom line stronger by elevating the voices of the people that this initiative will ultimately effect. Our coalition partners also helped us add Youth Access to Transit as part of the larger SRTS initiative, making the program more comprehensive and inlcusive of older studetns.
Our opportunity is to consistently fund safe routes to school. This year, we are asking Metro and JPACT to fund SRTS for every kid as part of the MTIP cycle which starts in 2019. These funds would allow us to make streets safe near our schools, provide students with crucial bicycle and pedestrian safety information, encourage kids and families to bike and walk, enforce traffic laws near schools, and make transit accessible to high school students. The low income communities that are least likely to have a safe route to school would be served first.
Our goal is to serve every kid. The cost to reach 150K kids and 414 schools in the metro area is 56M every 2 years. Cities/Counties/ and school districts are already contributing about 16M to this effort. We are asking Metro to help fill the 40M gap. These other percentages are targets we’ve determined based on existing needs assessments and successful programs elsewhere. SRTS is not a one-size fits all approach, though. Each city, county, or school district would still get to figure out their own priorities and how to use the funding.
A region-wide needs assessment would be the first step in making a safe route to school for every kid.
56% would go towards making streets safe by building sidewalks, bike paths, safe crossings, and other safety projects that can benefit a whole neighborhood.
34% of funding could be used for improving access to transit, by improving bus shelters, adding service, building high-visibility crossings to transit stations, and making sure transit is affordable for our youth.
8% of the funding need is in education and encouragement- teaching bike/ped safety, educating parents about safe travel behaviors around schools, and getting the whole community to participate in events like Walk + Bike to School Day.
Strategy: Our campaign has a 2 tiered approach that includes both grassroots (like working with parents, teachers, kids, and community partners) to tell their story) and grasstops (like working with elected officials and city/county/meto/Trimet staff). In order to bring safe routes to school for every kid, we need everyone’s help. In the coming months, Metro Council and the Joint Policy Advisory Committee on Transportation will decide on critical funding that could give every kid a chance at a healthier future. Our Coalition is working to make SRTS a reality For Every Kid.
Any questions?
[play by ear- final question: Would this be a useful presentation for the C4? How about your Council/board? What should be tweaked?]