For more than a decade, the Iowa Safe Routes to School led by the Iowa Bicycle Coalition encouraged more kids to ride bicycles to school. The Safe Routes to School program has:
- Taught thousands of kids how to ride safely;
- Improved walking and bicycling infrastructure around schools;
- Created fun activities like walking school buses, walk to school day events, and more.
We usually like to measure our success with increased walking/bicycling in our annual travel tally and decreased kids bike crashes in our annual crash reports.
In one Safe Routes community, we were inspired by a mother whose health and weight had deteriorated, but she was determined to walk with her kids to school. It started with a walk to the mailbox, then to the neighbor’s house, then to the end of the block, and finally to school.
Iowa Safe Routes To School can change lives. Find out more at www.iowasaferoutes.org.
Take the Safe Routes Survey: Our best ideas to encourage more kids to ride bicycles comes from you.
We talk a lot about the importance of the bicycling community, but fostering more generations of bicyclists is a crucial role for our community. To expand the involvement of the bicycling community, we created a survey to learn more about your ideas and priorities.
Take a 2-minute survey at https://www.surveymonkey.com/r/XX5CNLX to help us identify::
- Communities where the Safe Routes to School programs might be effective.
- Program elements that you want to learn more about.
- Areas where you may want to invest your time and talents.
Donations and Sponsorship needed to expand Safe Routes to School across Iowa.
Your donation is an investment into the future of Iowa bicycling. If you think more kids riding bicycles is important for Iowa, your help is critical.
- 26% of bicycle crashes in 2020 involved a kid under 16 years old.
- The program requires a 25% (over $20,000) match to keep its grant and keep operating. Iowa Bicyclists like you provide the funding to keep this program.
- Individuals, organizations, and businesses can sponsor bike safety clinics and programs.
- It starts with you. A donation of $10, $100, or $1,000 could put more kids on bikes and help cement a sustainable legacy in Iowa bicycling for generations.
