Many communities that receive federal Safe Routes to School grants are looking to encourage more students to walk and bike to school through programs like the “walking school bus.” However, in urban areas children are already walking to school, and the needs of the community are very different. In Newark, a recent spate of gun violence, ever-present reckless drivers, and generally unsafe streets have sparked a city-wide movement to protect children along their daily commute to school.
Newark received its first-ever Safe Routes to School grant in the spring, with the city getting money for infrastructure improvements and local education, transportation and civic organizations getting funds for program activities. These groups, which include the One Newark Education Coalition, Meadowlink, and the Tri-State Transportation Campaign, formally joined forces to make it safer for kids to walk and bike to school. But they found that violence and dangerous traffic were hampering the program goal of improving student health by increasing walk- and bike-to-school rates.

In response, advocates formed Safe Streets, Safe Kids – a wider coalition of seemingly separate groups working to address safety issues with one voice, dedicating themselves to safe schools, safe streets and safe communities. Safe Streets, Safe Kids will integrate efforts from a broad range of Super Neighborhood Councils, transportation and education advocates, community development corporations and other nonprofit groups in 14 schools throughout the city.

On September 8, community members, school officials and advocates gathered near Martin Luther King Jr. Elementary School to announce the new coalition and address growing concerns over safety as Newark students pour back into classrooms for the new school year. Held at the corner of 8th St. and Central Ave., Newark’s fourth-most dangerous intersection (measured by crashes causing pedestrian death or injury), the Safe Streets, Safe Kids event showcased the city’s growing pedestrian safety movement and the many different perspectives it takes to make the walk home from school truly safe for Newark students.

“Our children encounter conflict on a daily basis, in the schools and in the community,” said Johnnie Lattner of the One Newark Education Coalition. “At the end of the day, all of us must take an active role, as adults, in making our streets safer for students traveling to school and back home again.”