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According to the Marin County Bicycle Coalition, “Marin County Safe Routes to Schools (SR2S) is pleased to announce its new Green Ways to School campaign to combat global warming, funded by a $175,000 grant from the Marin Community Foundation’s Climate Change Initiative. The Green Ways to School campaign will feature the new SchoolPool on-line trip sharing program, new contests, and cash incentives for the schools that show the greatest increase in green trips to school by walking, biking, carpooling or taking the bus.

Building on the success of Marin’s nationally recognized SR2S program, the Green Ways campaign will employ a classroom competition within schools, and challenges between schools with cash awards. Parents will be able to use the on-line SchoolPool program to build a network of friends to share the journey to school modeled after employee ridesharing programs; SchoolPool will provide parents with match-lists of schoolmates who live along their route to school. They can then form a carpool, walk or bike together, or find bus buddies for their children. Walking or bicycling in groups provides safety in numbers and provides socializing time as well as exercise on the way to school, for both the children and the parents. The program will be unveiled on January 21, 2010 at 4 p.m. “

For more information visit www.marinbike.org

(SAN FRANCISCO, CA) — According to a press release issued today by the San Francisco Bicycle Coalition, “Parents and students will be taking to the sidewalks and forming ‘walking school buses’ all across the city when SF schools celebrate Walk to School Day, Oct. 7th. Walk to School Day is also the kick off for a new program that will help raise a new generation of walkers and bikers. The new two-year Safe Routes to Schools program, funded by a $500,000 grant from the federal government, aims to make biking and walking to school easier for parents and kids through education, safer streets and incentives.

The Safe Routes to School Program is led by the SF Department of Public Health and supported by the SF Bicycle Coalition, SF Unified School District, SF Police Department, and the SF Municipal Transportation Agency. It will be launched at five elementary schools this school year including: Bryant (Mission District), George Washington Carver (Bayview), Longfellow (Excelsior), Sunnyside (Sunnyside), Sunset (Outer Sunset). 68% of the students at these schools live within one mile of their school, so there’s an amazing opportunity to increase the number of kids who get to school by bike and foot. Next year 10 additional schools will be added to the program for a total of 15 schools.

“The Safe Routes to Schools program teaches students and parents about how easy it can be to save our earth by reducing pollution,” says Phyllis Matsuno, Principal of Longfellow Elementary School (SFUSD) Principal Phyllis. “We’re thrilled that Longfellow was selected to participate in this program, it’ll help us promote healthy, active and attentive students.”

Getting more children to walk and bicycle to school is a much-needed solution. In San Francisco, one quarter of children are overweight and studies show that 75% of these overweight children will become overweight as adults, translating into more cases of diabetes, asthma and other chronic diseases. During the past four decades the obesity rate for children ages 6 to 11 has more than quadrupled (from 4.2 to 17 percent), and the obesity rate for adolescents ages 12 to 19 has more than tripled (from 4.6 to 17.6 percent). In addition, communities throughout the U.S. report that as much as 21 percent of morning traffic can be parents driving their children to schools.

The Safe Routes to School is a popular nationwide program that has a proven track record at over 5,440 schools for helping more children and communities become healthy, safe, and green. Schools in Oakland, California reported an amazing 10% increase in students walking and biking to school after just one year of launching their Safe Routes to School.

“Safe Routes to Schools is one of the best ways to improve conditions for walking and biking,” says Leah Shahum, Executive Director of the 10,000-member SF Bicycle Coalition, which promotes bicycling for everyday transportation. “We know that fewer and fewer kids are walking and biking to school today and that this is having a direct, negative effect on kids’ long-term health and habits. Fortunately, we know we can turn this alarming trend around.”

Studies show that 78% of school age children are not getting enough exercise and that this generation will likely be the first to have a lowered life expectancy than their parents. “Bicycling and walking are wise public health investments because they encourage active lifestyles that will help prevent disease,” says Mitch Katz, MD, Director of the San Francisco Department of Public Health (SFDPH).

“Walking is an important part of our day and a great time for us to talk about what she did at school, go over her spelling words and take in the view from the top of Morse and Allyson streets,” says Jacquie Chavez, ‘Walk to Win Wednesday’ co-founder and mother of a first grader at Longfellow Elementary. “My daughter is learning to be safe, smart and independent and we are making the streets safer by not adding another car to the road.”

For more on International Walk to School Day in San Francisco, see: http://www.sfwalktoschool.com. For more information on the San Francisco Bicycle Coalition and the SF Safe Routes to Schools Program see http://www.sfbike.org.”