Policy and Equity
In 2011, the City of Portland’s SRTS program worked with community stakeholders to create policy around equitable service delivery. These new policies aim to provide a transparent and effective means of directing the program through 2035. SRTS staff and stakeholders acknowledge that these goals can only be achieved through coordinated and focused efforts by both governmental and community partners.
- By 2035, 75% of all elementary schools within the City of Portland will receive biking and walking education.
- By 2035, 75% of all students attending elementary schools in Portland will travel to school by foot or bike.
Click here to see our Safe Routes to School policy.
Prioritization Ranking Process
Working in over 100 schools citywide, SRTS is committed to sharing limited resources in an equitable manner by prioritizing schools with high populations of historically disadvantaged youth. This may include communities of color, recent immigrants, low-income families, and more.
To assist in this prioritization, SRTS has developed a ranking process which considers several criteria to rank schools from more to less need. The matrix is used in two distinct classes: programmatic elements (generally encouragement and education efforts) and capital improvements (engineering installations). Here are some specific instances in which the ranking process may be utilized:
- determining which schools should be offered education classes when a spot becomes available
- suggesting partnership opportunities for a new technology (such as the Saris Hub Trip Tracker)
- allocating limited funding for new crosswalks
The process considers a combination of four basic categories to rank each school:
- school demographics (free/reduced lunch rate, communities of color, ESL or newcomer population)
- existing conditions (bike & pedestrian network connectivity, bike & pedestrian crash history, active travel history)
- past expenditures (historical SRTS investment - used for engineering projects only)
- school support (event participation, school coordinator or principal support - used for programmatic evaluation only)
Ranking schools is meant as a guide for directing resources, but actual results may vary. In programmatic instances particularly, school support is absolutely necessary to move forward with a program. Therefore, even if a school is at the top of the priority list, it may not see a given service due to lack of administrative support.