SAN FRANCISCO (Map, News) - While San Francisco is often seen as a bikeable, walkable city, very few students ride bicycles or walk to school, according to the San Francisco Bicycle Coalition. The City’s Department of Public Health is hoping a $500,000 grant will change that.

The grant, from the federal Safe Routes to School programs, would provide funding for infrastructure and education that would make it easier for students to walk and bicycle to school. Leaders said they hope to roll out Safe Routes programs at five local schools in the fall and at another 10 next fall.

“We’re looking to focus on schools with a high percentage of students living within a half-mile of the school,” said Leah Shahum, executive director of the San Francisco Bicycle Coalition.

The coalition — along with DPH and the San Francisco Municipal Transportation Authority — is also eyeing five schools that already have been targeted for traffic taming, including Thurgood Marshall Academic High School, Leonard R. Flynn Elementary School, Longfellow Elementary School, Jefferson Elementary School and Tenderloin Community School, said Jessica Manzi of the SFMTA.

Safe Routes to School originally was hatched across the Golden Gate Bridge in Marin County in August 2000. The project, founded by the Marin County Bicycle Coalition, has become a national model; $612 million in federal funding was released to 42 states for Safe Routes programs in 2007.

Marin has since seen a 40 percent decline in car-related traffic near schools, according to Shahum.

While San Francisco received its grant last year, it can’t launch Safe Routes until it passes a handful of legal hurdles with the California Department of Transportation, the agency responsible for disbursing the money, said Ana Validzic, pedestrian and traffic safety project coordinator for the DPH.

Maggie Morgan-Butcher, 11, who attends Alamo Elementary School in the Richmond district, said she enjoys biking or walking to school.

“It’s really fun — you get some fresh air before you go sit in a classroom all day,” Morgan-Butcher said. Her only safety concerns come when she crosses 25th Avenue, she said, because it’s so busy.

bwinegarner@examiner.com

Comments from Examiner Readers

8:59 AM MST on Tue., May. 13, 2008 re: "First-grader caught with gun at school"

L. Amiot said:
This incident says parents are irresponsible in teaching children about firearms. Or, consider this: the parents are just stupid people who mated and had a stupid child. The gun control freaks will treat this article like a gift from their diety and bang their drums for more laws for GUN CONTROL. As if that will stop irresponsibity, stupidity, or apathetic criminal behavior.

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2:58 PM MST on Thu., Apr. 17, 2008 re: "Sunset parents shine light on school assignment issue"

Examiner Reader said:
To Hell with diversity. A kid should walk to school in the first six years, ride the bus or walk for the next three years and travel across town by bus to finish off High School. Anything else is foolish.

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9:07 AM MST on Sat., Mar. 8, 2008 re: "Lunch-line ID cards sweeping The City"

Examiner Reader said:
cant the City use the million or so for that weelchair ramp to pay for lunch for hungry school kids? or does the alioto family triumph over common sense again ?

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8:51 PM MST on Thu., Mar. 6, 2008 re: "Parents, students cross their fingers, hoping to get into school of choice"

Examiner Reader said:
As the parent of a fifth grader awaiting the NEWS about middle school I am haunted by memories of my first two tries at getting an elementary school... I am so stressed out and I can't wait for that stupid letter to come so I can plan the next 3 years of my child's life...sigh...

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10:58 PM MST on Thu., Feb. 28, 2008 re: "Pink slips approved for school district employees"

Examiner Reader said:
If SF is in such dire financial crisis that hundreds of teachers are being laid off, then why are Ammiano and Newsom launching a million-dollar campaign to post billboards reminding illegal aliens of all the freebies they can get?

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