February 2011 - Parks & Recreation - 48

community health continued from page 45

sidewalks in surrounding areas. In Davenport, Iowa, a team
of community leaders and stakeholders led by the Davenport
Parks and Recreation Department established a goal of increasing physical activity in the city's 50 parks and on more
than 15 miles of walking and biking trails. Davenport also established a goal of connecting all the city's walking and biking
trails as a key part of its alternative transportation system. This
team began addressing how to encourage people to use the
parks and trails more. It has also been working with the Davenport Community Schools, which oversees 30 public schools,
to determine how kids could be motivated to walk or ride their
bikes to school on city trails. Davenport collaborated with city
planning, police, and public works departments to help the
district's Safe Routes to Schools committee determine where
improvements to parks and trails could encourage more kids
to walk and bike to school.
A similar team of community leaders in Lynnwood, Washington, led by the Lynnwood Parks, Recreation, and Cultural
Arts Department, set out to encourage more children to walk
or bike to school by improving Lynnwood's network of walking and biking routes. The local school district, which includes
nine public schools, faced budget cuts that resulted in the removal of busing for students who live less than one mile from
school. The Lynnwood team viewed the bus transportation cuts

In 1969, 42 percent of children ages 5 to
18 years walked or bicycled to school, with
87 percent of children within one mile of
schools walking or bicycling to school.

as an opportunity to encourage more students to walk or bike
to school-and a schools committee was created to work with
an elementary school to improve the safety of the students on
foot and on bikes. The committee began by conducting a walking audit to identify barriers to safe walking and biking within
one mile of the school. The audit revealed the need for sidewalks on major routes to the school. In collaboration with the
elementary school staff and the parent-teacher association, the
Lynnwood team was recently successful in obtaining a Safe
Routes to School grant which they plan to use, in conjunction
with the city, to install missing sidewalk links and striping for
bike lanes.
A number of resources are available to help you get
your community involved in Safe Routes to School. The National Center for Safe Routes to School (http://www.saferoutesinfo.org/) provides a centralized location of resources
for getting started. In addition, NRPA is pleased to be part of
the Safe Routes to School National Partnership (http://www.
saferoutespartnership.org/), a network of more than 500 nonprofit organizations, government agencies, schools, and professionals working together to advance the Safe Routes to School
movement in the U.S. To support the national goal of better
health through physical activity, CDC's Nutrition and Physical
Activity Program has developed Kids Walk-to-School. This is a
community-based program that aims to increase opportunities
for daily physical activity by encouraging children to walk to
and from school in groups accompanied by adults: http://www.
cdc.gov/nccdphp/dnpa/kidswalk/index.htm.
For more information about your state's Safe Routes to School
program and how to get involved, visit http://www.saferoutes
partnership.org/state/statemap/. NRPA supports communities that
are implementing successful practices to promote health and wellness. To learn more about these programs, please visit www.nrpa.
org/achieve or www.nrpa.org/cppw.

Zarna az Bashir is NRPA Senior Program Manager.

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February 2011 - Parks & Recreation

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