We will conduct a comprehensive safe routes assessment utilizing a web and interview-based audit method developed by us.Interviews will be conducted with students at Munroe Elementary School. Students will be recruited with the assistance of the school principal and the after school technology leadership program, Open World Learning, to represent the school's gender and ethnic diversity and the geography of routes to and from school. We will work with students during and after school. Students will draw their routes to school, discuss their travel behaviors and assess hazards using web-based maps and survey forms. Utilizing this protocol, we will overlay students' perceptions with GIS-based parcel, business, social, transportation and planning data on the neighborhood. Using high-resolution methods developed in our previous research, we will analyze hazardous areas based on the presence of vacant lots, business type, street congestion and other factors. This will result in maps and information describing existing neighborhood hazards.
A Safe Routes to School Planning Team consisting of representatives from community stakeholders group (e.g., parents, teachers, school administrators, government officials, business leaders, law enforcement officials, health advocates, and professionals in transportation, urban planning, engineering, and health) will be formed to evaluate route safety and to develop strategies for neighborhood-wide interventions to improve route safety. We will prioritize engineering changes and write a proposal to fund infrastructure changes during the next round of SR2S funding. We will work with city engineers and law enforcement to implement both short- and long-term solutions to these safety problems