By Trish Svoboda

The Kansas Department of Transportation’s Safe Routes to School Program (SRTS) has announced that six Kansas communities have been awarded the 2024-2025 Planning and Programming (P&P) grants.

These grants will support SRTS plans for a total of eight schools across Sedan, Riverton, Silver Lake, Wellsville, Wallace County Schools, and Weskan Unified School District 242. Planning work is scheduled to begin in August, with final plans expected to be completed by April 2025.

This marks the second round of planning grants awarded by KDOT. The next opportunity to apply for SRTS grants is slated for the summer of 2025. Recently completed were the plans for the first round of P&P grants, which were awarded to five Kansas communities last year. These plans encompassed an assessment of current conditions, outcomes from public outreach efforts, and proposed infrastructure and non-infrastructure solutions aimed at promoting safe walking, biking, and rolling routes to school for children.

More information is available at https://www.kansassrts.org/grants-and-funding.

The plans can be found at https://saferoutes.ksdot.gov/about-the-program.