As students return to school, drivers are being warned to be vigilant now that more young people will be out walking and biking to school. In Vermont cities and local organizations are collaborating to help provide resources to families about the safest ways to get to school.
Vermont Safe Routes to School is a collaboration between the state’s Agency of Transportation Bicycle and Pedestrian Program and Local Motion, the statewide coordinator and a Burlington-based nonprofit that promotes walking and biking. Local Motion Executive Director Christina Erickson explains that Safe Routes is a national program to help keep kids safe.
“Essentially it is working with school communities, and that might be families, that might be teachers and administrators. It might be the local law enforcement. It might be the local Department of Public Works to make sure that children, families have a safe way to get to school. Ideally we would love to see this by walking, biking or rolling. But we also know that it means by riding buses, potentially being dropped off in personal vehicles. But we’re really trying to make sure that children and families are able to get to school in a safe way.”
Erickson says they work with students, adults and the school to determine what safety features a community needs such as crosswalks or sidewalks. But Vermont is largely rural and such infrastructure is often lacking. Erickson says key safety strategies come down to the individual level.
“For people driving vehicles we want to make sure that they know here in Vermont you are supposed to give bicyclists a four foot buffer when you are passing them. And we want people on bicycles to know the rules of the road for them as well. They are supposed to ride with traffic. If you’re walking you want to walk against traffic. Trying to be as visible as possible. Speed in vehicles, in cars and trucks, really plays into the most dangerous elements of any close calls or, heaven forbid, any fatalities. And so really trying to minimize speeds and just watching out for everyone.”
Erickson cautions that the back-to-school surge of students sharing the roads may not diminish as more different types of bicycles and cold weather gear means pedestrians and bikers could be out at any time of the year.
“We are seeing people of all ages, and children especially, out on different bikes and conveyances coming and going to school as our climate is changing. You know last February felt like April to me and it was dry and relatively easy to get around on a bike because there was no snow or ice. So people are out on bikes and other ways of rolling all year round. And so we need to remember to keep an eye out for each other year round. It’s not just a seasonal thing.”
