The New York City Department of Transportation (NYCDOT) recently announced that 100 schools will open with brand new sidewalks this year.   The new program was developed by NYC Transportation Commissioner Iris Weinshal to repair and add sidewalks to schools.  The sites were selected in community districts where the city’s sidewalk contractors were already working, and were chosen independently of that DOT's new Safe Routes to School program.

In March, the DOT launched Safe Routes to Schools to install traffic calming infrastructure around schools with dangerous bike and pedestrian environments.  Initial projects for that initiative are still in the works. For more on the NYC Safe Routes program, see Transportation Alternatives website: transalt.org/press/askta/040330.html.

In its first year, New Jersey’s "Safe Streets to Schools" program, run by NJ DOT’s Local Aid office, awarded $5.6 million in 45 grants to municipalities seeking to improve walking environments around schools. However, the program appears to have been launched at the cost of reducing state aid for other bike and pedestrian programs. The state reduced its regular local aid bike-pedestrian program by about $5 million from 2003 to 2004.

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