Prioritizing Schools for Safe Routes to School Infrastructure Projects Determining the most effective use of limited infrastructure funds is a challenging task. It is especially demanding for local transportation professionals involved in applying for federal Safe Routes to School Program funds, which often require engineers to prioritize infrastructure needs for multiple schools. By Carl Sundstrom, Nancy Pullen-Seufert, MPH, Megan Cornog, MRP, Mike Cynecki, P.E. and Kevin Chang, P.E. Determining the most effective use of limited infrastructure funds is a challenging task. It is especially demanding for local transportation professionals involved in applying for federal Safe Routes to School (SRTS) program funds. These funds, which are used to improve conditions for children to walk and bicycle to school, often require engineers to prioritize infrastructure needs for multiple schools. This article describes a process that is intended to be a practical way to identify and prioritize elementary and middle schools in a city, district, or other local jurisdiction. Developed by the National Center for Safe Routes to School with funding from the U.S. Department of Transportation Federal Highway Administration, the process attempts to balance what is known about preventing child pedestrian injuries with what can realistically be accomplished without a comprehensive field review of every school site. The primary emphasis of this process is on improvements that make walking conditions safer. While bicycle travel shares many common needs, other factors such as bicycle parking, on-road facilities and surface conditions would need to be considered when thinking about safety for that mode. Safe Routes to School Programs Successful Safe Routes to School programs generally use a multifaceted approach to make it safer and more convenient for children to walk and bicycle to school by assessing current walking and bicycling conditions, implementing education and encouragement strategies, engaging law enforcement and identifying and implementing engineering countermeasures. This comprehensive approach requires involvement from several segments of a community, such as school administration, parents, law enforcement and transportation professionals. The transportation professional s role usually focuses on evaluating the transportation system to identify safety problems and appropriate countermeasures to address the problems. The tool described in this article provides a standard method for evaluating the urgency of safety needs within a group of schools. This process is intended to assist transportation professionals who are preparing a Safe Routes to School funding application for infrastructure improvements. However, it could also be useful when applying for funds from sources such as transportation enhancements, congestion mitigation and air quality, local government capital improvements, or other funding sources. Project Need In the summer of 2008, the National Center for Safe Routes to School, which serves as the Federal Highway Administration s clearinghouse for the federal Safe Routes to School program, conducted nine interviews with local transportation professionals in urban and suburban settings in the states of Arizona, Connecticut, Florida, Michigan, Nebraska and Washington. Interviewees were selected in part because of their familiarity with the Safe Routes to School program. Their experience enabled them to speak about what processes they currently use to prioritize infrastructure projects and what tools would be useful. Interviewees indicated that there was a need for a standardized tool at the prioritization and implementation level of infrastructure projects, but that identifying problems and concerns often requires communication and coordination with local stakeholders. They felt that they would enlist the help of nonengineers, such as school staff, parents and police, to help gather basic information about safety concerns and driver or 24 ITE Journal / February 2010
pedestrian behavior. In addition, engineers wanted it to be easy to compare across different identified problem areas. Project Identification Process To address the needs articulated by interviewees, the National Center for Safe Routes to School developed a three-step project identification process. The process outlined in this article is the first of the steps to identify the highest-priority locations and countermeasures for Safe Routes to School projects within a school district or another geographic or municipal area (see Figure 1). The goal of the first step is to identify which schools would most likely benefit from improvements that increase student safety. The result is a shortened list of specific schools (and perhaps specific locations) that will then merit closer professional examination to determine the underlying causes of the safety problems and appropriate countermeasures to improve safety (steps 2 and 3). Assessing Walking and Bicycling Routes: A Selection of Tools found at www.saferoutesinfo.org and PEDSAFE: Pedestrian Safety Guide and Countermeasure Selection System found at www.walkinginfo.org/pedsafe are helpful resources for these steps. Step 1: School Prioritization Process Step 1 is itself a multistage and iterative process that should prepare engineers to move on to steps 2 and 3 with a list of schools that merit the most immediate attention for infrastructure improvements. The first stage of step 1 requires prioritizing schools into one of five groups based on several key factors (see Figure 2); the second stage involves refining within those groups, if necessary, to understand the relative urgency of safety problems among schools that fall into the same prioritization group. Prioritizing Schools Into Groups The use of this process offers a transparent and straightforward decisionmaking method that can be simply explained in funding applications and to the public. Three key factors determine how schools should be sorted into prioritization groups: crash history, public Figure 1. SRTS project identification. Figure 2. School prioritization groups. and school officials concerns, and current and potential pedestrian use. For example, routes where children are already walking and where there is a history of child pedestrian-related crashes should be given first priority. Places where children would walk if safety improvements were made belong in a different group. Figure 2 shows characteristics to use to place each school into a group. Key Factors for Prioritizing Schools By organizing schools into the groups just described, three key factors have been addressed. These provide the primary information for determining safety concerns and are essential for determining the risks for student pedestrians: Crash history; Public and school officials concerns; and Current or potential pedestrian use. For each of these factors, the walking attendance boundary of a school is the most appropriate geographic scope for examination. If the walking attendance boundary is not readily available, a halfmile radius around the school may be used. The amount of information collected for this process may be driven by the amount of time available and what information already exists. The major intersections and corridors where students walk are the most important locations for this data collection. While much of the data chosen for this process is likely accessible from the office and interviews, sometimes field data collection would offer a greater understanding of conditions. The interest and support from the school community is integral to the success of a SRTS program. While not directly related to the safety benefit of a specific countermeasure, a supportive school administration, parents and others can certainly increase infrastructure use. Also, if the school has a school safety committee or similar group, it should be aware of the considerations used to prioritize needs and support the identified improvements. This will ensure both broad community support and defendable decisions for the infrastructure priorities. The level of buyin from the school may also influence into which group a school fits. ITE Journal / February 2010 25
Refining Within Groups Looking at differences in crash history, public concerns and current or potential pedestrian use may show that some schools clearly have more critical needs than others. However, in most circumstances, there will still be the need for additional refinement of the groups in order to fully prioritize the schools. The next factors to consider are road and driver characteristics, including Traffic volume; Travel speed; Existing infrastructure; and Crossings. For more discussion about these factors, search the National Center for Safe Routes to School s Web site (www. saferoutesinfo.org) for prioritizing infrastructure improvements. Other Considerations The intent of first sorting schools into groups and then looking at road and driver characteristics is to yield a specific list of schools that need further study to assess walking conditions. However, there are also other considerations that can help determine the priority for funding schools that fall into the same group, such as geographic and socioeconomic distribution. Another consideration in prioritizing projects is identifying which improvements will benefit the most students. Logically, improvements near the school will almost always affect more child pedestrians than improvements further away on a route. Improvements along the most-used school walking routes might also be prioritized. Finally, most countermeasures have a monetary cost. Because some countermeasures are much more expensive than others, budgets go furthest when communities consider the benefit they will receive from each countermeasure. While expensive countermeasures may have some benefit, the same funds may be better spent on implementing less expensive remedies at many locations. Moving to Step 2: Field Review In order to help track and organize information about each school, an editable worksheet is available. To download it, go to www.saferoutesinfo.org/online_library and search for prioritizing infrastructure improvements. Undertaking step 1 will have rendered a shortened list of specific schools that merit closer professional examination to determine the underlying causes of the safety problems and appropriate countermeasures to improve safety. Once schools are identified as needing field review, see the National Center for Safe Routes to School s Assessing Walking and Bicycling Routes: A Selection of Tools (search www. saferoutesinfo.org) for a listing of several tools developed by various cities and states that can be used for detailed field reviews for conducting step 2. Application of the School Prioritization Process To illustrate how this process is applied and the types of results rendered, two examples from local engineers are included here. Each engineer applied the process in a slightly different way to best utilize available data and existing relationships. King County, Washington, USA: Six elementary schools located in unincorporated King County, Washington, were Figure 3. Front page of completed school worksheet. Figure 4. Back page of completed school worksheet. 26 ITE Journal / February 2010
examined for this review and included five urban schools and one rural school from the Kent School District. The population at each school ranged from approximately 450 to 575 students. As part of the data collection process, both school principals and school district officials were contacted either by phone or in person. The worksheet, along with Figure 2, were used to identify the current metrics of the school (including the percentage of students currently walking to school, percentage of students living within the walking boundary, number of enrolled students and so forth) in a systematic and consistent manner. The school principal or school district official typically offered additional feedback or invaluable insight during the discussion that could be used during future planning or engineering work (for instance, signage or signal preferences, perceived parent opinions and so forth). The prioritization process resulted in three schools in group II and three schools in group III. Figures 3 and 4 provide examples of a completed school worksheet. One of the challenges with establishing or providing a safe walking route to school can be when an elementary school is located adjacent to a busy arterial roadway. While a residential neighborhood located on the same side of the arterial as the school may experience a high percentage of walkers, the number of children walking to school may be almost nonexistent if a similar residential neighborhood is located on the opposite side of the arterial. In the latter case, schoolchildren will often be bused due to the inherent dangers associated with crossing a high-volume roadway, despite the presence of signage, striping and/or uniformed crossing guards. These types of considerations should be included when prioritizing school needs and benefits from infrastructure improvements. Phoenix, Arizona, USA: Phoenix tested this prioritization tool to rank schools in the Baltz Elementary School District, one of 28 school districts within city jurisdiction. There are about 526 schools in Phoenix, including private, charter and parochial schools. The Baltz Elementary School District is composed of five schools, four elementary schools and one junior high school and is located One of the challenges with establishing or providing a safe walking route to school can be when an elementary school is located adjacent to a busy arterial roadway. in east-central Phoenix. The district is located in an older part of the city that has a relatively high proportion of streets built without sidewalks and a larger proportion of lower-income residents. This small school-district size allowed us to complete this evaluation quickly, and Baltz School District officials have shown a high interest in working with the city on traffic safety issues at their schools. The prioritization process resulted in four schools in group II and one school in group I. The school falling into group I, which is the highest priority for infrastructure improvements, deserves the highest level of attention within the district. Even though the other four schools received the same relative ranking of group II, there is either crash information or other information about difficult crossing or walking locations that provides the ability to further prioritize the schools for infrastructure improvements. One school does not yet have a walking/bicycling route map prepared for students and parents. Implementing the prioritization process allowed city traffic engineering staff to renew direct contact with the school principals to learn of new concerns and to advise them whom to contact to address traffic problems that may arise with them or their parents. The process encouraged principals to reflect on traffic issues at their schools, which is beneficial to traffic engineering staff interested in addressing those concerns. Phoenix annually contacts all school superintendents/transportation directors and school principals once a year via a form letter asking about any changes planned for the next year (such as new school openings or changes in arrival and dismissal times) or school traffic problems experienced during the last year. Many school officials do not respond to this annual offer of assistance. This process conducted periodically will offer an opportunity to directly contact the school principals or their representative to discuss traffic issues at their schools. With more than 500 schools, this can still be a daunting task, but it is one that needs to be done. Prioritizing school concerns and working on the highest infrastructure needs can provide a benefit in the event of a legal claim as long as the agency follows through on this process and documents the prioritization process. Findings This process is intended to provide a guide for transportation professionals to prioritize schools for infrastructure improvements. End-user interviews indicated a need for a standardized methodology to determine which schools are in the greatest need. This process provides the methodology to directly compare schools at a macro level. Since all jurisdictions are different and many schools will have similar needs, this process allows for judgment in determining which factors rank as most important based on local conditions. As demonstrated in King County and Phoenix, there is a benefit to evaluating schools using the same metrics. Through this side-by-side comparison, it becomes evident where the greatest need exists for safety infrastructure improvements. The information collected allows for defendable decisions for prioritizing schools, even between those that fall into the same group. This process also allows transportation and engineering departments to improve communication and build relationships with school principals ITE Journal / February 2010 27
and officials. These discussions do not require much time but provide valuable information about safety concerns and history about each school. By collecting information about key factors that affect student pedestrian safety in a consistent way and soliciting input from school officials, engineers who apply this tool may be able to get Safe Routes to School infrastructure funds for the schools and at the locations where it is most needed. n Carl Sundstrom is an engineering research associate with the University of North Carolina Highway Safety Research Center and a program specialist with the Pedestrian and Bicycle Information Center. He is a member of ITE. Nancy Pullen- Seufert, MPH, is associate director of the National Center for Safe Routes to School, which is located at the University of North Carolina Highway Safety Research Center. Megan Cornog, MCRP, is a project coordinator with the National Center for Safe Routes to School at the University of North Carolina Highway Safety Research Center. Michael J. Cynecki has been working in the Traffic Services Division for the Phoenix, Arizona, USA, Street Transportation Department for 25 years and has 30 years of traffic engineering experience overall. He is a fellow of ITE. Kevin Chang, Ph.D., P.E., is a supervising engineer with the King County Department of Transportation in Seattle, Washington, USA. He has a doctoral degree in civil and environmental engineering, specializing in transportation engineering, from the University of Washington and is currently the secretary for the Washington State Section of ITE. He is also chair of the Transportation Research Board s Subcommittee on School Transportation. He is a member of ITE. 28 ITE Journal / February 2010