Walk and Roll: WSDOT Active Transportation Update - January 24, 2025

Washington State Department of Transportation sent this bulletin at 01/24/2025 12:20 PM PST

    Active Transportation Division News From WSDOT and Partners

    Connectivity -- Safety -- Opportunity -- Participation -- Partnership

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    What you'll find in this issue: 

    • A primer on the newest edition of Target Zero, our state's new Strategic Highway Safety Plan
    • A peek into a statewide program making bikes and bike skills available to thousands of students 
    • Updates about our e-bike rebate program
    • Recommendations for things to read/watch/listen to
    • Events and trainings to keep on your radar
    • Grants and funding opportunities
    • Surveys to take
    • Opportunities to present and publish 
    • Plenty of useful resources! 

    The Mobili-Tea Around ATD

    Target Zero: Washington’s New Plan Breaks New Ground

    Washington’s new Strategic Highway Safety Plan, known as Target Zero, introduces a new element to safety: Safer land use. This critical addition signals to decision-makers at every level that transportation safety isn’t just something for transportation agencies to work on.

    The Safe System Approach has made its way into federal guidance, WSDOT policy, and the work of agencies and advocates across the US. It’s still new enough that no one can say it’s being fully implemented everywhere, but the policy shift matters for changing future work. Washington often leads the way in national-level policy discussions; the Safe System Approach was included in the 2019 Target Zero plan before federal guidance came out. Washington’s action in introducing land use as a critical factor for safety follows WSDOT’s work on topics such as vehicle mile reduction and how towns and cities can invite and support mode shift away from driving alone.

    Target Zero incorporates concepts first highlighted in work led by the Active Transportation Division on designing for speed limits chosen to match the context. The Active Transportation Plan speaks to both the importance of safer speeds and locating crossings to provide more direct routes for people walking, biking and rolling. These kinds of changes make streets work better for everyone, including drivers who benefit from streets that give them cues to expect people using active transportation.

    The plan defines equity as one of the foundational elements. This was also true in the Active Transportation Plan. The Vulnerable Road User Safety Assessment WSDOT released in 2023 reinforced the importance of applying equity analysis to understand collision data (included as Appendix D in the Target Zero plan).

    Target Zero’s development was led by a steering committee with Shelly Baldwin, Pam Pannkuk, and Mark McKechnie of the Washington Traffic Safety Commission and Barb Chamberlain, Dongho Chang, and John Milton from WSDOT. The collaborative writing team drew on expertise from Charlotte Claybrooke of the ATD for the chapter on active transportation safety. The ATD team reviewed and contributed to other elements of the entire plan along with other WSDOT colleagues.

    Preliminary data from 2024 indicate fewer serious and fatal crashes for all modes than in 2023, which is good news. But we can’t count on that decrease to continue without deep commitment to the principles and approaches in the Target Zero plan from every level of government and from all the partners in traffic safety.

    Students on bikes lined up in a gym smiling at camera

    Students are all smiles during an in-school bicycle education class.

    ‘They Can Feel Like Little Superheroes’: How We’re Helping Students Gain Bike Skills Statewide

    For many of us, learning to ride a bicycle during childhood was our first taste of transportation freedom. But not everyone gets that opportunity or feels confident on a bike when they do. We’re managing an initiative to change this.

    The Statewide School-Based Bicycle Education Program teaches bike skills and can provide new bikes and safety equipment. The program is now in its second year. It has already educated more than 12,000 kids across Washington. It’s also given more than 1,000 students new bikes and safety equipment.

    One of those children is fifth grader Alex Villa-Gomez in Orondo. He received his first bicycle through the program. His mother, Maria Gomez, shared that she didn’t have an opportunity to learn to ride when she was younger. She’s excited to know her son and many other children are getting this opportunity.

    The program will train at least 90% of Washington students in 3rd through 12th grades to safely ride to and from school, for fitness and for fun. Students and schools can join at no extra cost.

    Keep reading this post on the WSDOT Blog. 

     

    Mark Your Calendars: The E-bike Rebate Program Will Launch This Spring

    After many moons spent managing research informing the program, developing the program, finalizing contracts and searching for a qualified contractor, we can finally see the light at the end of the (bike-accessible) tunnel. We wanted to flag some developments for you because they get us closer to giving you access to a rebate application.

    The gist: 

    ⚡️ We have an experienced contractor! They’re helping us set up the technology and training we need to handle rebate distribution and reimbursement securely. With a contractor on board, we have a clearer understanding of how much time we need to cross our t's and dot our i's. Which brings us to: 
    ⚡️ We’re launching in April! We know people are eager for this program to roll out, and we’re working hard to finalize things. There's no application to fill out as of yet, but we'll make sure to update you when the exact launch date is set. 

    Hankering for as much information as you can get? Check out a press release we published about these updates, as well as our new WE-Bike program website. These resources share a bit more about rebate eligibility and how the application process and distribution will occur.

    Five+ Things to Read/Watch/Hear

    Let's start with a highlight from ATD Director Barb Chamberlain: 

    "[Recently] we watched a couple of episodes of the Japanese reality TV show "Old Enough!", which follows kids going on errands all by themselves. ... [There was a] five-year-old being sent to the store with a 1,000-yuan bill to buy two items and then to the bakery; running back home to check on the yakisoba he was supposed to get because he didn't know which brand/package; running every time and jumping over obstacles instead of going around – adorable and made me wish we had this freedom for our kids everywhere." 

    Trainings, Conferences, Webinars

    We add new trainings as we find them, so the list changes with every issue. Some of these offer continuing education credits. All times are shown in Pacific Standard Time.

    All items are webinars unless a location is noted.

    January

    February

    March

    Save the Date

    Grants and Funding Opportunities

    Planning, Projects and Surveys

    • The team at BikeRackMap.com is asking cyclists to share information about availability and quality of bike parking in the places they travel, to create transparency around facilities available to people on bikes.
    • State of Public Space Survey: Project for Public Spaces is seeking participation in effort to understand current challenges and opportunities for public spaces in the United States. Providing a response enters participants in a drawing to win a book.

    Have an upcoming project, open house, public comment opportunity? Construction projects people should know about as they relate to biking/walking? Compliments on a project? Send to WSDOTActive@wsdot.wa.gov .

    Present, Publish, Participate

    Calls for Papers/Abstracts: 

    Call for Applications:

    Call for Reviewers:

    Keep track of all of the USDOT’s discretionary funding opportunities at the DOT Discretionary Grants Dashboard. Also, a full listing of pedestrian- and bicycle-related federal funding programs is available through FHWA. 

     Have any funding opportunities people should know about? Send them to WSDOTActive@wsdot.wa.gov.

    Research and Resources

    We share new papers, established databases, thoughtful essays, and even older research that was ahead of its time. If these are helpful to your existing work or spark a new project: Email WSDOTActive@wsdot.wa.gov to let us know! 

    If you read this far, thank you! You're finding something of value here and you know someone else who should receive this kind of news. Forward WSDOT Walk and Roll to others and share the subscription link on social media (tag it #WSDOTactive).

     

    Hannah Weinberger
    Communication Lead, WSDOT Active Transportation Division
    hannah.weinberger@wsdot.wa.gov