What is Safe Routes to School?
Safe routes to school is an approach that promotes walking and biking to school. It’s one way the City of Carlsbad is working with the community to enhance traffic safety throughout the city and is based on the 3 Es of traffic safety: education, enforcement and engineering.
What does a safe routes to school plan include?
A safe routes to school plan includes short and long-term infrastructure improvements and programs the schools can implement to support safe walking and biking to school.
Short-term infrastructure improvements can be done more quickly and are cost-efficient such as speed feedback signs and restriping.
Long-term infrastructure improvements usually take more planning, design time and costs such as curb extensions, traffic circles or other traffic calming measures.
How will community input be used?
Input from the community will be used to help identify areas around each school where walking and biking enhancements could be made. The city’s recommended improvements will be reflected in each school’s safe routes to school plan.
What schools are involved?
In 2021, the City Council approved funding for Safe Routes to School programs throughout the city. In 2022, Hope Elementary School was selected as a pilot school to kick off the program.
The city is working with several Carlsbad schools to create a safe routes to school plan:
- Hope Elementary School, 3010 Tamarack Ave.
- Jefferson Elementary School, 3743 Jefferson St.
- Sage Creek High School, 3900 Bobcat Blvd.
Aviara Oaks Elementary and Middle schools are anticipated to be the next schools.
The city anticipates expanding the program to other schools in Carlsbad in the coming years based on funding.
Why is safe routes to school important?
While not every family may be close enough to their school to walk and bike, the more people who do, the better traffic will flow and the less time will be spent waiting in school pick-up and drop-off lines.
Walking and biking to school have been shown to:
- Improve health
- Improve safety
- Improve the air quality by reducing the number of cars on the road
- Improve readiness to learn and student attendance
