Safe Routes, Happy Trails: Planning for the 2024-2025 School Year

Safe Routes to School Meet-Up

Thank you to everyone who attended the annual Safe Routes to School Meet-Up! Together we shared exciting updates from across Minnesota, learned about SRTS initiatives beyond the stay and explored St. Paul with a choose-your-route walking bingo activity. The day concluded with a panel of successful youth engagement projects, including authentic community engagement in the planning process, the Rainbow Friends toolkit, and a youth-centered mapping project with Minneapolis Public Schools. We look forward to keeping the momentum going and continuing these conversations through network calls and connections as the new school year begins. 

Back to School with Safe Routes

Join us for a celebration of walking – Oct. 9

Let’s go big this year and celebrate international Walk to School Day event! Register your participation as an entire school, a neighborhood, or a family. We know that these events are important opportunities to encourage physical activity and promote safety in your neighborhoods and near schools. We encourage you to participate in a way that is best for you and fits local public health guidance.

We’ll send you posters to advertise your event, stickers and zipper pulls for the kids, and educational spoke cards and bookmarks to share with students to schools that register to share on your event day. Please register by Friday, Sept. 20.

Join our MnSRTS Photo Contest and share where you love to walk. We will highlight winning photos all month long. Help us encourage more walking in Minnesota.

More than ever, students will benefit from physical activity, fresh air and increased focus.

Plan and market your event:

• Check out these ideas for Walk to School Day 2023 from the National Walk and Bike to School Day website for inspiration at the family, neighborhood, or school level.
• Here are some resources to help you plan. These can be used in-school, by classroom or physical education teachers in a distance-learning context, or by families at home. Download our Walk to School Day Marketing Materials, premade posters, social media ads, flyers and post card mailers in English, Spanish, Somali and Hmong!

Join Our New Safe Routes to School Office Hours

Have questions or ideas about Safe Routes to School (SRTS)? Join our new office hours for brainstorming, feedback, and success stories. We're excited to announce our new office hours, designed just for you.

Office Hours Schedule:

• 📅 1st Monday of the Month at 3 p.m.
• 📅 3rd Thursday of the Month at 8:30 a.m.

Each 30-minute session is a great chance to engage with our SRTS team. Everyone is welcome! Access Link here: News - Safe Routes to School - MnDOT (state.mn.us)

Active Transportation Education Requirement

The State of Minnesota requires all public-school students to receive age-appropriate education related to safe walking and bicycling during the first few weeks of class each year. This mandate went into effect last August. MnDOT provides resources to help schools meet this requirement

SRTS Program Materials

Check out SRTS materials, including back-to-school flyers and walk zone postcards for your school community.

MnSRTS Websites

MnSRTS Resource Center (https://mnsaferoutestoschool.org/): Tools and information for local school communities to support walking and biking programs. Find resources for educators, parents, and community members

• Programming: Guides and resources to start and expand walking and biking initiatives
• News & Events: Stay informed about the latest MnSRTS news and events

MnDOT SRTS Website (https://www.dot.state.mn.us/saferoutes): Information on planning, design, and funding in the SRTS program

• Grant and Funding Solicitations: Details on upcoming grants, application guidelines and deadlines
• Planning, Research and Design: Support the development of SRTS plans
• Education and curriculum: Educational materials for Minnesota students

MnSRTS in the News:

Electric School Bus Pilot Project report now available. The Minnesota Pollution Control Agency (MPCA) deployed Volkswagen settlement funds to create a pilot project explore electric school in Minnesota.

Findings: Electric school buses can work in Minnesota. Eighty percent of grantee respondents said they might recommend electric school buses to other districts depending on their specific circumstances (the 20% who wouldn’t indicated cost as the limiting factor). Be on the lookout for future funding opportunities. More funding is anticipated to be available soon!

Fall 2024 Safe Routes to School Grant and Funding Opportunties

Stay tuned to this newsletter as there are many upcoming grant solicitations for Safe Routes to School this October. Funding opportunities include:

• Planning Assistance solicitation to help develop an SRTS plan
• Boost Non-Infrastructure solicitation to support communities with existing SRTS plans to promote non-infrastructure projects like walking school buses, bike fleets, crossing guard supplies, signage and more
• Design Assistance solicitation to bridge the gap between Safe Routes to School plan strategies and implementation
• Demonstration Projects solicitation to provide short term, low-cost, temporary roadway projects used to pilot long-term design solutions to improve walking/bicycling and public spaces
• State-funded SRTS Infrastructure Grants
• Greater Minnesota Transportation Alternatives (infrastructure) solicitation for federal infrastructure funding for Greater Minnesota communities (requires 20 percent match)

Mark Your Calendar: Walk! Bike! Fun! trainings

Help us spread the joy of teaching children how to ride a bike. The Walk! Bike! Fun! curriculum meets Minnesota Department of Education standards for physical education classes.

The educator training is free. Sub-pay is available to reduce barriers for attending.

Dates and registration links: 21: Kellogg 11: Thief River Falls 25: Leech Lake Learn more about the Walk! Bike! Fun! curriculum, bike fleet trailer request, and future training opportunities.

MnSRTS Events

MN SRTS Network Call

Sept. 5, 10-11 a.m. Topic: Walk to School Day

Oct. 9, 10-11 a.m. Topic: SRTS Funding Opportunities

• Share and learn with whose working on SRTS from across Minnesota.
• To join the Minnesota Safe Routes to School Network and received log in information please email dot@state.mn.us
• View past recordings and slides

Oct. 9 – Walk to School Day

Feb. 5, 2025 – Winter Walk to School Day

May 7, 2025 – Bike to School Day

More about MnSRTS

Visit: http://www.mnsaferoutestoschool.org

Visit: https://www.dot.state.mn.us/saferoutes

Contact: saferoutes.dot@state.mn.us

_{MnDOT invites and encourages participation by all people in their programs, services and activities. If you need an ASL, a foreign language interpreter, or documents in an alternative format (such as braille, large print or in a different language) at no cost, please email your request to Janet Miller at ADArequest.dot@state.mn.us or call 651-366-4720. Relay service: 711.}

_{If you need any other reasonable accommodation to participate (such as seating modification or auxiliary aids), please email your request to Accessibility.DOT@state.mn.us or call 1-833-400-8432. Relay service: 711.}