In Los Angeles, the leading cause of death for our elementary and middle school students is car crashes. It's every parents nightmare and yet every school day hundreds of thousands of students and their parents take to LA streets to get to school. Here are some of our programs to make sure our students get to school with safety and dignity:

"School Street" Pilots: Reimagining Drop off & Pick Ups (Ongoing)

For students walking to school and parents joining them, neighborhood streets can become incredibly dangerous. For many neighborhood streets, they double as freeways. We're partnering with the LA Department of Transportation's Safe Routes to School program to pilot School Streets, an innovation to how LA does student pick up and drop off: creating temporary pedestrian/bicycle only zones.

Who knows? There may be a school streets coming to you soon!

>> Check out our full report here! <<

University Park Parents Slow Down Traffic (Ongoing)

Public demonstrations such as slow jams are a powerful public education tool. By intentionally slowing down traffic with bright signs and educational messaging, slow jams alert drivers of their proximity to schools and responsibility to walking students. Our hope is to educate drivers and pedestrians alike of the space we all share. Through a partnership with Public Matters and USC Kid Watch, we have been working with parents in the University Park community on conducting walk audits and community actions that will eventually lead to pedestrian infrastructure change. 

You can learn more about the project here. 

Walk to School Day's "People vs. Streets" (Past)

In 2019 for Walk to School Day, Los Angeles Walks partnered with parents of Vista Charter School and Franklin Ave. Elementary School on a morning event called People vs. Streets, where we assisted parents at busy intersections during student drop off. Very much like slow jams, this effort was to educate the public on the dangers of reckless driving, the impact on our students, and to advocate for infrastructure change, like a “No Right Turn On Red” sign.