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SRTS planning uses a framework known as the 5Es:
Evaluation
Education
Encouragement
Enforcement
Engineering
This approach is based on an understanding that the barriers to safe walking and bicycle riding are both behavioral and physical. Reflecting this, solutions are classified as non-infrastructure and infrastructure.
Most SRTS projects will begin with the non-infrastructure approach, using the first four of the five “Es.”
I In addition to surveying parents and children, the evaluation process can including mapping the safest routes between students’ homes and the campus.
Sometimes elementary school children are not aware of the rules of the road they are supposed to follow when they ride bikes. Others need instruction in the proper way to cross the street safely. This is where the education element is useful.
The “walking school bus” or “rolling bike train” approach has put some fun into the trip to school in Nashua and Farmington. When an adult volunteer accompanies a group of walkers or bikers, this form of encouragement gets kids out in the fresh air while providing safety in numbers. Participation in a one-day or week-long walk- or bike-to-school event is an excellent way for a community to initiate a SRTS program.
IIn other communities, speeding drivers and motorists who fail to stop in crosswalks put children at  unnecessary risk. In Concord, for example,the local police participated in an enforcement effort where cruisers park in visible sites near the schools during morning and afternoon drop-off and pickup times.
Engineering or “infrastructure” solutions require the most advance planning and initial commitment of local funds. These projects can be relatively inexpensive. New signs, painted crosswalks, and a stripe marking a bike lane on the shoulder of a road are examples. In other situations, a local task force may apply for funds to repair sidewalks or fill in a gap in sidewalks on what would otherwise be a good route to school.
For more information on each of the 5Es see the national SRTS site:
Evaluation
Education
Encouragement
Enforcement
Engineering
NH SRTS Home Page
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