Last Spring, Winooski held its first-ever Walk to School Day. It rained the whole morning, but the children showed up anyway equipped with umbrellas and rain jackets, walking to school with their families and neighbors for the first time as a group. It was the first event pulled off by Winooski’s brand new Safe Routes to School task force, a group of school staff, parents, advocates, and city staff who’d started meeting only a few months before with the shared goal of making it safer and easier for kids to walk, bike, and roll to school.

That’s the work of Safe Routes to School: unglamorous groundwork that every so often turns into a wet early morning with a whole sidewalk filled with kids walking to school together, making our children and communities just a bit better each time. Learn more about the Safe Routes to School at localmotion.org/srts.

Here’s what Local Motion's Safe Routes to School work will look like this school year:

Walking & Biking School Buses

With the help of the Chittenden County Regional Planning Commission, we’re piloting stipends for schools to run walking or biking school buses, where a trusted adult leads a big group of kids to school along a set route, making the school trip safer, more fun, and easier for parents.

Interested in hosting a walking or biking school bus in your community? Contact [email protected].

Walk & Bike to School days

This year, we’re challenging Vermont schools to host one walk or bike to school day each month of the '26-'27 school year, including Crossing Guard Appreciation Day (which became officially recognized in Burlington last winter!). Full dates and resources can be found at localmotion.org/srts.

Sorting out e-bikes & e-motos

E-motos have been showing up around school campuses faster than school admins have been able to set policies — or even figure out which device is which. Local Motion will be building out plain-language resources to help parents and school staff tell an e-bike from an e-moto, and help kids stay safe no matter what they ride. More information and resources can be found at localmotion.org/emotos.

Bike Smart & Move Smart

Our Bike Smart program provides free on-bike education to 10,000 Vermont students each year, with a trailer full of kids bikes, helmets, and a curriculum. This year, we’re also rolling out our new Move Smart curriculum which includes pedestrian safety education that gets kids moving, learning about infrastructure, and having fun. Learn more about both programs at localmotion.org/bike_smart.

Campus Engagement at Edmunds

We’ll continue to work with Burlington’s Department of Public Works and the Edmunds Middle & Elementary schools to coordinate improvements to the campus infrastructure, explore changes in upcoming street repaving projects, and advance new policies to make it safer and easier for kids to walk and bike to school.