Norton Touts Safe Routes Dollars to Stop High Rate of Pedestrian Injuries (10/1/07)

Washington D.C. -- Congresswoman Eleanor Holmes Norton (D-D.C.) today joined House Transportation and Infrastructure Committee Chairman James L. Oberstar (D - MN) and Mayor Bill Eullie, Alexandria, VA, at a press conference today to release a report on the Safe Routes to School program (SRTS) around the country, a nationwide program to enable and encourage children to walk and bike safely to school. Norton, a subcommittee chair on the Transportation and Infrastructure Committee, has been a champion of SRTS for good reasons. "In 2004, 224 children under the age of 16 were struck by motor vehicles in the District," Norton said. "Children were 30% of those killed or injured, but are only 20% of the city's population. Infrastructure enhancements are urgently needed for safe walking and biking and are essential to assure kids and their parents of their personal safety on our streets."

Norton told students from Bunker Hill Elementary and Noyes Elementary schools who stood with the Congresswoman at the press conference that safe walking and biking also are important to help eliminate the childhood obesity epidemic and contribute to the reduction of carbon emissions by getting kids out of cars and walking and biking instead. The District will receive a total of five million dollars and has already begun participating in the program with four school pilots: Brookland Elementary, Capitol Hill Cluster School, Bunker Hill Elementary, and Noyes Elementary. Local efforts are also underway educating 3,000 kids a year through the Washington Area Bicycle Association (WABA) and providing $60,000 a year to the Metropolitan Police Department to provide extra security along routes children use to get to school. An inventory of all public and charter school neighborhoods to identify and replace missing and damaged sidewalks is planned.