Supported by: Vermont Department of Health, Local Motion, AARP, Vermont Adaptive Ski and Sports

This year, we aim to diversify participation by broadening the scope of the event to all those interested in discovering new ideas and gaining new insights to bring back to their own schools and communities, in order to amplify our work on promoting safe routes for all vulnerable road users, especially children, older adults, and people with disabilities or mobility impairments. We are pleased to offer you an exciting program of presentations and networking opportunities that you will not want to miss! You will come away with useful new ideas, tools, and resources! Our goal is to help you become an even more powerful advocate for making your community and its schools a safer place for everyone to walk and bike.  Here is a sample of some of the exciting breakout sessions we're offering this year:

• Reclaiming and Remaking Streets: Lessons from a Student-led Pop-up Project in Rutland

• Building Bridges: A Successful Community-School Partnership in Shelburne

• Funding your Safe Routes Projects: A Panel Discussion

• Playing with the Built World! Tips & Tricks with Finn

Where: Vermont Granite Museum, Barre VT
When: April 11, 2019, 9:00-4:00 pm
RSVP to the meeting here: SRTS SRFA Annual Gathering RSVP

We are working hard to make this meeting as relevant as possible for you, with networking and partnership opportunities, useful information and resources, as well as ideas from peers and partners that will leave you energized and excited! 

Agenda: 

8:30-9:00 -- Check-In & Breakfast

9:00-9:10 -- Introduction to the Day

Opening remarks from organizers at Local Motion and the Vermont Department of Health

9:10- 10:00 -- Keynote Speaker: Fionnuala Quinn, Director, Bureau of Good Roads

Fionnuala Quinn is the founder of Discover Traffic Gardens. Her first love is watching children experience the type of active learning fun that creates new awareness about our built world. Raised in another time and place, Fionnuala brings a fresh perspective to how things could be to her everyday work and ideas. With decades of experience as a civil engineer plus as an advocate for better streets, Fionnuala now designs custom traffic gardens, educator kits, and hands-on activities. She has worked with officials, non-profits, and schools in creating and organizing workshops and events, large and small. Her original hands-on activities explain the big ideas around in streets in fun and easy-to-understand ways. She believes that everyone can be involved in helping our young people understand the built world better. Through a few simple tools, the big ideas behind better streets can become part of children's world view. Today, Fionnuala will demonstrate and explain the ways these activities can reach into any classroom or community.

10:00-10:10 -- Transition

Please use this time to stretch, use the bathroom, converse with partners, get something to drink, and get to the next session.

10:10-10:40 -- Meet Your Regional Partners Icebreaker

Attendees will partner with others working in the same geographic location to answer an ice-breaker quiz question, discuss local opportunities, and develop relationships.

10:40-10:50 -- Transition

Please use this time to stretch, use the bathroom, converse with partners, get something to drink, and get to the next session.

10:50-11:50 -- Breakout Sessions Round 1

Attendees can move between the mini sessions and spend more time where they have more of an interest.

• Adaptive Bicycling in Your PE Program
  • Felicia Fowler: Vermont Adaptive Ski & Sports
• Playing with the Built World! Tips & Tricks with Finn
  • Fionnuala Quinn: Bureau of Good Roads
• E-bikes For the Busy Vermonter
  
  • Ross Saxton: Local Motion
• Building Bridges: A Successful Community-School Partnership in Shelburne
  • Joplin James, Kevin Boehmcke: Shelburne Bike and Paths Committee

11:50-12:20 -- Lunch

Lunch will be served, if you registered online we will work to ensure that any indicated dietary needs are met.

12:20-1:00 -- Successes and Challenges Circles

Back by popular demand, the Successes and Challenges Circle gives the group an opportunity to learn from the successes of others working on similar issues in Vermont and work together to find solutions to challenges. Please come prepared to share a success, challenge, or lesson learned.

1:00-1:10 -- Transition

Please use this time to stretch, use the bathroom, converse with partners, get something to drink, and get to the next session.

1:10-2:10 --Breakout Sessions Round 2

Attendees can move between the mini sessions and spend more time where they have more of an interest

• Playfully Educational: Tools to Engage and Involve People In Your Walk/Bike Programming
  • Mary Catherine Graziano: Local Motion
• E-bikes For the Busy Vermonter
  
  • Ross Saxton: Local Motion
• Complete Streets are Safer Streets – Improve Walkability for all Ages
  • Kelly Stoddard-Poor: AARP
• Reclaiming and Remaking Streets: Lessons from a Student-led Pop-up Project in Rutland
  • Laura MacLachlan: VEEP, Allegra Williams: Local Motion

2:10-2:20 -- Transition

Please use this time to stretch, use the bathroom, converse with partners, get something to drink, and get to the next session.

2:20-3:40 -- Panel on Funding Opportunities

Presentations about funding opportunities around Vermont and an opportunity to ask questions about Vermont grants.

3:40-4:00 -- Closing Remarks

We will wrap up the gathering, distribute evaluation forms, award prizes, and provide certificates of attendance.

Breakout Descriptions:

Morning Sessions:

Playing With the Built World!  Tips & Tricks With Finn

Fionnuala Quinn: Bureau of Good Roads

Come to a 60-minute workshop with Fionnuala and learn how to put together fun hands-on activities using what's already available to teach about how we put together our streets & the built world. Fionnuala has a background as a civil engineer; local advocate; and STEM educator. Back in 2015, she launched The Bureau of Good Roads, which was a business dedicated to creating civic education about good street design for all users and bringing these ideas to youth and community members through hands-on activities and challenges.  Now she has reshaped those ideas into a new business venture, Discover Traffic Gardens. Through the concept of traffic gardens, miniature sets of streets for children, she has developed a wide range of traffic garden & street design hands-on activities for engaging young people in designing a traffic garden or for STEM learning. She will share some of these activities in the workshop to show how they have wide application in the community. She will explain how she sources her low-cost materials and deploys local streets as a free tool to introduce children to these big ideas.

E-bikes For the Busy Vermonter

Ross Saxton: Local Motion

Join Ross to explore the amazing world of e-bikes! Check out e-bikes in person, take one for a spin, and learn about how an e-bike can transform how you travel in our rural state. These game-changing bikes are helping people ditch the car, van, or truck for many trips throughout the year--even with two kids, groceries, a lawnmower, or lumber in tow!

Building Bridges: A Successful Community-School Partnership in Shelburne

Joplin James, Kevin Boehmcke: Shelburne Bike and Paths Committee

Eight years ago some students in Shelburne and their teacher decided it would be nice to walk the 1.5 mile through the woods to get to school in the morning instead of driving, but they had to get across the LaPlatte River. For a while, they used a fallen tree to get across, but it washed away in a spring flood. So the went to the town to ask if they could build a bridge. They had no idea how complicated it would be to get the permit and an approved plan, but the community rallied and finally, the LaPlatte Crossing footbridge was completed last fall entirely with private funding and volunteer labor. In this workshop we'll tell about the process to get the bridge built and how it provides community access to the wonderful trails along the LaPlatte River.

Playfully Educational: Tools to Engage and Involve People In Your Walk/Bike Programming

Mary Catherine Graziano: Local Motion

Not your mom’s educational campaigns.  When your public educational campaigns are fresh, delightful and interesting, folks will pay attention.  In a world full of distractions on every side, road safety and walk/bike encouragement campaigns can be easily overlooked.  We’ll go over strategies and toolkits designed to make people sit up, pay attention, and join in.

Complete Streets are Safer Streets – Improve Walkability for all Ages

Kelly Stoddard-Poor: AARP

In too many communities, it can be impossible to get around if you don't have a car. In many towns and villages, sidewalks are few and far between. For too many years, transportation policies have mostly served people using fast-moving vehicles rather than public transit, bicycles or their own two feet. But a street that's safe for a 70-year-old to cross to shop is safe for a 7-year-old walking to school. Complete, smartly planned streets and transportation options are great for people of all ages. This session will explore how to conduct a walk audit and advocate for improved walkability – so lace up your sneakers and join us for a walk audit.

Reclaiming and Remaking Streets: Lessons from a Student-led Pop-up Project in Rutland

Laura MacLachlan: VEEP, Allegra Williams: Local Motion

Middle school students from Christ the King School in Rutland, in partnership with Local Motion and VEEP educators, will present on a recent pop-up community demonstration project they organized collaboratively to improve safety for all those traveling to school. The presenters will also share how pop-up projects can be integrated into School Travel Planning, and how these temporary demonstrations can help communities build support for better bike and pedestrian infrastructure.