Safe Routes to School

What We Do

Safe Routes to School (SRTS) is a national movement to make it easier and safer for students to walk and bike to school. Our SRTS program is designed to improve safety in areas around schools and to encourage more kids to walk and bike. It's our goal for Seattle's school children to start their day by having fun, strengthening connections to their communities, improving physical and mental health, and arriving to school in time for breakfast and ready to learn. As part of our city's continued effort to end institutionalized racism and build a more equitable city, we are focused on extending the benefits of walking and biking to school to students in these groups: 

  • Communities of color 
  • Low-income communities 
  • Immigrant and refugee communities 
  • People experiencing homelessness or housing insecurity 
  • The LGBTQIA+ community 
  • Girls

It is our Vision Zero goal to end traffic deaths and serious injuries on city streets by 2030

Equity is foundational to Seattle’s Vision Zero and Safe Routes to School program, whose goal is to eliminate racial disparities and achieve racial equity

It's our Climate Change vision to make 90% of personal trips zero emission by 2030

5-Year Action Plan 

Over the next 5 years, the SRTS Program will be led by a 5-Year Action Plan that lays out actions we'll take toward our goal of making it safer and easier for kids to walk and bike to school. It recommends specific, near-term strategies built around our program's seven E's: Equity, Environment, Education, Empowerment, Encouragement, Engineering, and Evaluation. Equity is infused into each of the other six categories as we continue our committment to taking a racial justice-driven approach to promoting more active commuting among students.

The Action Plan guides our investments by ranking all public and most private schools in Seattle. The rankings are based on where people walking or biking have had collisions, the races and ethnicities of students at each school, and numerical scores from the Pedestrian Master Plan that measure how inviting the streets around each school are for walking.

All children have the right to health, happiness and academic success regardless of race. For more detail, view the Safe Routes to School Action Plan Prioritization Process. To see how your school ranks, view the School Rankings for Walkway Projects and Crosswalk Projects.

Education: Ensure Everyone Learns How to Travel Safely

Empowerment: Provide Resources to School Champions

Engineering: Design Streets for Safety and Predictability

Environment: Reduce The Impact of School Travel

Encouragement: Promote Walking and Biking

Evaluation: Track Progress Toward Our Shared Safety Goals

"I bike to school because biking relaxes me and

prepares me for a day of learning." - Yasi, Student

A school age child smiles with her bike on a pedestrian street. A group of young students wearing brightly colored backpacks walks down the sidewalk

A young man helps a student with a bike helmet fitting A student wearing a yellow safety vest and holding a stop flag volunteers to monitor the crosswalk at his school

Transportation

Greg Spotts, Director
Address: 700 5th Ave, Suite 3800, Seattle, WA, 98104
Mailing Address: PO Box 34996, Seattle, WA, 98124-4996
Phone: (206) 684-7623
684-Road@seattle.gov

Newsletter Updates

Subscribe

Sign up for the latest updates from Transportation

The Seattle Department of Transportation (SDOT) is on a mission to deliver a transportation system that provides safe and affordable access to places and opportunities for everyone as we work to achieve our vision of Seattle as a thriving, equitable community powered by dependable transportation.