California Walk to School Headquarters

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Walkability Checklists

These checklists are used to answer the question "How walkable is your community?" They are the first step in creating safer routes to school. Families, schools and communities use a short and simple checklist to write down the hazards they discover along a route between home and school.

Walk to School events often provide the occasion for schools to send the checklist home for families to use on Walk to School Day. Event coordinators compile the results from all the checklists, and work with school and community leaders to select and prioritize needed improvements.

HOW IT WORKS

Consider the following tips for evaluating the safety and walkability of your community.

• Pick a route to school and use the Walkability Checklist to decide if your route is a friendly place to walk.
• Read over the checklist before you go and, as you walk, note the location of things you would like to change.

SUGGESTED ACTION STEPS

Here are things you can do to improve the safety and walkability of your neighborhood!

• Trim trees or bushes on your property that block the street and ask your neighbors to do the same.
• Ask neighbors to keep dogs leashed or fenced and report scary dogs to the animal control department.
• Take your checklist results and write an op-ed or a letter to the mayor or planning department.
• Organize a neighborhood speed-watch program and request increased police enforcement.
• Organize a school and surrounding community clean-up or tree-planting day.
• Encourage your school to teach walking safely and to start safe walking programs.
• Tell local traffic engineering or public works department about specific problems and provide a copy of the checklist - emphasize that pedestrian-friendly communities are places with a high quality of life, often translating into increased property values, business growth and increased tourism.
• Speak up at city council meetings or petition the city or town for walkways and gather neighborhood signatures. Let them know that with more people walking, communities experience reduced traffic demands, improved air quality and greater physical fitness.
• Use checklist results to support funding applications for the Caltrans Safe Routes to School grants

CHECKLISTS

Use the walkability checklist created by the California Walk to School Headquarters as is or revise it to make it more specific to your school and surrounding community.

This checklist is available in the following languages: Armenian, Bosnian, Cambodian, Chinese, English, Hmong, Korean, Lao, Russian, Somali, Spanish.