Don’t undermine Hawaiʻi’s Safe Routes To School program

Following a year marked by historically high traffic fatalities and injuries for people walking and biking, Hawai‘i needs to strengthen — not weaken — our ability to create safe routes to school.

The state’s Safe Routes to School Program is only just beginning to deliver on reforms passed by the Legislature in 2023, yet a new bill risks undermining that progress before it has a real chance to succeed.

Through Act 244 of 2023, the Hawai‘i Legislature established the current SRTS framework “to prioritize the safety of keiki by fixing and simplifying the safe routes to school program, re-engaging community stakeholders, and appropriating funds to move priority projects and save lives …”       

Since its inception in 2024, the SRTS Advisory Committee, established under Act 244, has worked swiftly to advance its recommendations. This past summer, the committee recommended more than $12 million in worthy SRTS projects across the state, serving more than 5,600 students and their families. Projects funded are vetted by the SRTS Advisory Committee through a transparent process involving community stakeholders, ensuring prioritized projects reflect community and school needs, significant traffic risks, and more. 

However, House Bill 2454 emerged this year, and is poised to disrupt this important community-driven momentum. If passed, the bill would grant the Hawai‘i Department of Transportation broad authority to direct SRTS funds for its existing projects, without going through the legislatively mandated evaluation process of the other proposals. Many fear it would also undermine the full spectrum of SRTS-related and community-supported solutions in favor of status quo actions.