Safe Routes to School

Updated October 2024

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. Seattle’s Safe Routes to School program builds walking and biking infrastructure around schools and supports programming and activities that encourage more students to walk and bike with a focus on equity.

Graphic showing children crossing the street to school, with a crossing guard and kids on bikes. In the clouds are the words Safe and Welcoming Schools, Clean Air, Safe Streets, Independent Youth, Connected Communities

Graphic developed by Seattle Public Schools in partnership with SDOT

2023-24 Annual Report

Check out our 2023-24 Annual Report. Highlights include:

21% reduction in speeds on arterials where we installed speed cushions
137+ walking and biking packages distributed to 48 schools with free supplies like walking lights, school patrol flags, helmets, and more. A 92% increase from last year!
11 middle schools added to the Let’s Go program bike education program. Last year Let’s Go reached over 14,000 students with over 1,100 students learning to ride.

2024 School Travel Tally Report

We work with Seattle Public Schools to conduct an annual travel tally in all elementary and K-8 schools, and the 2024 School Travel Tally Report is out! On average, students reported an active transportation rate of 28% which is 10% higher than the rate when the tally was first conducted in 2005.

A sign that says 'how did you get to school today?' with four hearts representing walking, bus, cars, or bikes and kids signatures inside each heart.

5-Year Action Plan

The SRTS Program is guided 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

Get Involved

How Can SRTS Help You?