MassDOT Announces SRTS ‘Bike Rack Grant’ Winners

The Massachusetts Department of Transportation recently revealed the winners of 2024-2025 “Bike Rack Grants,” awarded via its Safe Routes to School or SRTS Program. Now in its second year, this grant program helps schools replace old, worn, and damaged bike racks, or acquire new or additional bike racks.

[Above photo by MassDOT]

The Massachusetts SRTS Program, sponsored by MassDOT with funds from the Federal Highway Administration, promotes safer routes for students to walk, bike, and roll to and from school by fostering partnerships between community-led organizations, local law enforcement, education leaders, and public health departments. The program currently serves more than 1,200 schools in more than 280 communities across state, MassDOT added.

The agency said bike racks purchased by these grants should be ordered and installed within the current school year, with each grant winner receiving enough funding to buy and install two to five bike racks.

Out of more than 60 applications received by MassDOT for its bike rack grants, the agency selected three winning schools/communities: Blueberry Hill Elementary School, Conte Community School, and Jenkins Elementary School.

“For students and staff who bike to get to school, a bike rack is just as essential as a traditional parking lot for those who drive,” said Monica Tibbits-Nutt, MassDOT secretary and CEO, in a statement. “We are pleased to continue to promote safe bicycling with grant programs like this and congratulate this year’s winners for their commitment to supporting school community members who walk, bike, and roll.”

The agency added that this represents the first round of bike rack grant awardees, not including the successful pilot projects in Medford and Brockton during the 2023-2024 school year. Each of the pilot schools were given bike racks that could accommodate 15 new bike parking spaces.

Other state departments of transportation are also engaged in similar SRTS initiatives.

For example, the Kansas Department of Transportation recently published its first SRTS Strategic Action Plan; a blueprint for helping more students statewide walk, bike, and roll to and from school through public awareness campaigns, municipal partnerships, and community tool kits.

In January, the Oregon Transportation Commission recently approved 28 Safe Routes to School projects, with a total investment exceeding $31 million, to help make travel safer for students within a two-mile radius of local schools.

Those projects – funded through Oregon Department of Transportation’s SRTS competitive construction grant program – aim to address the “highest” transportation safety risks around local schools, remove barriers for students at low-income schools, and are the likeliest to be completed within five years.

And in July 2024, the Ohio Department of Transportation issued more than $8 million to support 29 projects in 19 counties. The agency noted that projects are selected by a committee made up of subject matter experts from Ohio DOT and the Ohio Department of Health based on the ability to demonstrate improved bike or pedestrian connectivity, improved safety, number of students impacted, economic need, and available funding.