Lawrence updates Safe Routes maps as students walk and bike less
Parents at Cordley, West and Woodlawn keep naming traffic, crossings and train tracks as barriers, even as 13 of 15 schools logged their lowest walk-and-bike rates in fall 2025.
At Cordley Elementary, West Middle School and Woodlawn Elementary, parent surveys kept circling back to the same barriers: vehicle traffic, unsafe intersections, bike lane quality, train tracks and speeding cars. Those concerns are now shaping Lawrence’s latest Safe Routes to School update as the city, Lawrence Public Schools and regional partners redraw school-area maps and look at why fewer children are walking or biking.
In 13 of Lawrence’s 15 elementary and middle schools, fall 2025 had the lowest walking-and-biking rates of any of the previous five fall semesters. The city has posted fall data going back to 2021, and teachers collect the tallies twice each semester, giving planners a running look at how families are getting students to school.
Jessica Mortinger, the city’s transportation planning manager, told the planning organization’s policy board that staff had already reached out to parents and guardians and visited as many schools as possible before the end of the school year. That work paused for summer break and is set to resume when school starts again. Public engagement is scheduled to resume in August 2026, and draft elementary, middle and high school route maps are already posted for public review.
Lawrence’s Safe Routes work began in 2014 as a collaboration among Lawrence-Douglas County Public Health, Lawrence Public Schools, the City of Lawrence and the Lawrence-Douglas County Metropolitan Planning Organization. The citywide planning process began in 2019, and the Lawrence, Eudora and Baldwin City plans were approved by the MPO Policy Board on Nov. 19, 2020. Lawrence Safe Routes to School Amendment 2 was approved on June 15, 2023.
New adult crossing guard requests were suspended for the 2025-2026 school year while the city finished evaluations of pilot locations amid weather and hiring challenges.
Lawrence updated the maps in 2023 after Pinckney Elementary School and Broken Arrow Elementary School closed, forcing boundary shifts and route changes. Earlier Safe Routes work has included sidewalk-gap reviews, HAWK signals and Rectangular Rapid Flashing Beacons.
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