Equity in Safe Routes to School

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What do we mean by equity?

Equity recognizes that different people have different barriers to living healthy, fulfilled lives. To help people get to the same outcome, we need to understand the different barriers and opportunities that affect different groups and craft our approach with those challenges and needs in mind. Equity addresses the power imbalances and the lived differences that create different health, educational, and career outcomes for different people- differences that often emerge along lines of race, ethnicity, class, gender, sexual orientation, and disability.

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Equity is different than equality.

Equality can be understood as giving everyone the same thing, while equity means ensuring each person has access to what they need to thrive. For example, equality has been described as giving everyone a pair of shoes, while equity is making sure they have shoes that fit.

What does it mean to include equity in Safe Routes to School?

To help address inequities and increase service in low-income and communities of color, the Safe Routes to School program prioritizes Equity as one of its 6 E's. Equity needs to be built into each aspect of a comprehensive Safe Routes to School initiative, meaning that each E needs to include equity in its analysis and action items. But equity also needs to be considered separately to ensure that the overall effects of individual steps are adding up to a meaningful and sufficient investment in the safety and health of low-income students, students of color, and others.

Learn about the 6 E's of Safe Routes to School