Our Department also houses the Florida Department of Transportation Traffic and Bicycle Safety Education Program. Under a grant from the Florida Department of Transportation Safety Office, the primary role of this project is to promote safe walking and bicycling in educational settings throughout the State of Florida. The project staff conduct training for Florida's schoolteachers, law enforcement agencies, and community leaders in techniques to teach bicycle and pedestrian traffic safety skills. Since the beginning of the DOT/URP contract in 1991, the Traffic and Bicycle Safety Education Program has trained over 1,500 individuals in 34 Florida school districts.

The Department of Urban and Regional Planning has worked on several grants from the FDOT in recent years. Drs. Richard Schneider and Ruth Steiner evaluated the effectiveness of the Florida Traffic Safety Education Program and the Florida School Crossing Guard Program. Each of these programs is the only such program in the country. In two other related grants, Drs. Ruth Steiner and Linda Crider recommended countermeasures to reduce the incidence of bicycle- and pedestrian-related crashes on the University of Florida campus and on major roadways leading to campus. In each of these grants, which were a part of a larger campus master planning process, students assisted faculty members as research assistants and in a Bicycle and Pedestrian facility Design studio that uses state-of-the-art techniques and strategies. These two studies have led to approximately $2 million in programmed improvements in bicycle and pedestrian facilities on and around the University of Florida campus. The Department continues to offer a graduate level transportation design studio and a course, at the graduate and undergraduate level, in bicycle facility design.

Other activities include assisting the University Police Department (UPD) with the establishment of the Bicycle Traffic Safety School that allows bicyclists who violate traffic laws on campus the opportunity to attend the course in lieu of paying traffic fines. This program is the first in its kind in the state and it represents the University's commitment to recognizing bicycles as a serious means of transportation. An additional activity is the "Safe Ways to Schools" pilot project. It is a two-year funded grant project supported by the Florida Department of Transportation (FDOT) and the Florida Traffic and Bicycle Safety Education Program (FTBSEP). The project is a joint effort with the Florida Department of Education and local communities to improve the conditions of children walking and bicycling to school.

Community Service Activities also include:

• Development of the BICYCLE 2000 report for the FDOT Bicycle program, with statewide goals for year 2000;
• Bicycle/Pedestrian element of the Campus Master Plan transportation section and continuing work or the campus/community transportation task force;
• Lake Okeechobee Trail Symposium presentation or the UF Circumokee Trail analysis techniques and the CIRCUMOKEE REPORT, developed as part of the graduate student projects on Eco-tourism for South Florida;
• Planning and conducting the annual 6 day BIKE FLORIDA cross-state bicycle ride to raise awareness and supplement funds for bicycle safety education in the state of Florida;
• Conducting training for the various Community Traffic Safety Teams (law enforcement officials, community volunteers, and parents) on the best available techniques and materials for teaching bicycle and pedestrian safety skills to children and young adults; and
• Fostering the reorganization of the statewide Florida Bicycle Association (FBA) for state bicycle initiatives.