The Healthy Travel Options to School Action Plan will close infrastructure equity gaps, overcome cultural barriers to walking or biking to school, reduce school site vehicle trip generation and increase safety within the Portland Public Schools student active transportation network. The project will provide planned support to overcome infrastructure equity gaps that directly impact the livelihood of historically underserved students and their families.

Healthy Travel Options to School are defined as those commuting behaviors that promote active living, community prosperity, and natural resource conservation. The project is population-based, collects primary data, and builds upon existing active transportation infrastructure.

Key components of the Healthy Travel Options to School Action Plan:

• Covers 152 square mile areas and includes portions of unincorporated Multnomah County, as well as Clackamas and Washington counties
• Utilizes 2,306 miles of routes to school
• Includes 77 school sites and over 46,000 students and their families
• Inclusive stakeholder engagement, empowerment, and participation
• Crowd-source reporting through a web-app designed for mobile devices
• Targeted outreach to historically underserved populations
• Implemented during the project through a Healthy Travel Options to School Challenge
• Measures Environment, Equity, Health, and Economic project outcomes through multi-language, pre- and post-implementation mode split surveys and stakeholder self-reported data

The project is partnership with Oregon Walks and in consultation with the Portland Bureau of Transportation Safe Routes to Schools Program and a Stakeholder Empowerment Council.  

Oregon Walks is a nonprofit organization dedicated to promoting walking and making the conditions for walking safe, convenient and attractive throughout the Portland metropolitan region.

Safe Routes to School is a partnership between the City of Portland, schools, neighborhoods, community organizations and agencies that advocate for and implement programs that make walking and biking around our neighborhoods and schools fun, easy, safe and healthy for all students and families while reducing congestion around schools

The project is funded by the METRO Regional Travel Options program. Travel options grants fund projects designed to improve air quality and increase mobility via biking, walking, ride sharing, telecommuting and public transit.