Brick, NJ – Brick Township hosted a New Jersey Safe Routes to School (SRTS) Leadership Training workshop yesterday.  The workshop was held to train leaders from municipalities that were awarded SRTS grants or who have existing SRTS programs in their Municipalities. The program was co-sponsored by the NJ Department of Transportation and the Federal Highway Administration, Safe Routes to School, Rutgers University, Allan Voorhees Transportation Center and the RBA Group, a Transportation Planning Consulting firm.

“This is a great grant program.  Walking to school has so many benefits for the students and the community and this grant helps making walking or riding a bike to school safer and easier,” said Mayor Stephen C. Acropolis.  “We are thrilled we received this grant and thrilled that our Township had the opportunity to host yesterday’s workshop.”

In 2007, Brick Township was awarded a Safe Routes to School grant in the amount of $190,000 to build sidewalks and begin a Safe Routes to School program for the walking students of Midstreams Elementary School.  Township Planning, Engineering and Traffic Safety staff attended the workshop along with other attendees from communities across the State of New Jersey.

Safe Routes to School is a federal, state and local effort to enable and encourage children, including those with disabilities, to walk and bicycle to school and to make walking and bicycling to school safe and appealing.

The workshop provided a number of tools and strategies towards implementing Safe Route to School programs including programmatic options such as special events and curriculum and engineering options such as the construction of new sidewalks. The training also provided leaders with tools to evaluate the success of their programs and ideas towards addressing the unique needs of each community.

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