State fund aims to get more kids walking to school. Will they be safer?

A $10 million annual legislative appropriation to the Safe Routes to School special fund is bolstered by a $5 fee on every vehicle registration in the state, as well as a surcharge applied to all traffic tickets. The special fund was able to release $8 million in funding this round, Sniffen said.

But that’s still only a fraction of the nearly $800 million worth of potential projects that fit the program criteria waiting for funding, according to the DOT report. The new advisory committee has to decide where the limited funds available will have the most impact, Sniffen said.

The first round of projects selected by a permitted interaction group of the committee using a point system were “already in the pipeline and could be up and running within six months of the funds being released,” new advisory committee chair Abbey Seitz said Thursday in an interview. 

Those funds won’t be released until early next year, but Sniffen said the DOT was looking at ways to speed up disbursement by streamlining interagency agreements so that work could begin within four months of receipt.