Safe Routes to School coordinator outlines 2025 work; commissioners press for clearer, trend-based data

Maria Ariano, Sunnyvale's community services officer and Safe Routes to School coordinator, told the Bicycle and Pedestrian Advisory Commission on March 19 that the program conducted fall 2025 travel tallies, held bicycle-safety workshops, distributed helmets and other safety gear, and planned new outreach and equipment efforts for 2026.

"Our mission is to create a safer environment for Sunnyvale students and families to travel to and from school actively," Ariano said, describing the program's work across four school districts that serve more than 14,000 students in 14 elementary schools, four middle schools and two high schools.

Ariano said fall travel tallies were collected the week of Oct. 28 and 30, 2025, using teacher-administered Google forms or paper forms. From the schools that provided usable data, she reported that eight schools showed an increase in walking, three showed increased biking and seven reported more carpooling compared with the last available tallies; four schools provided no data and were excluded. Ariano said she required at least a 10-student change to list a school as "improved." "We had eight where students walked more to school,"…