Community Highlights

La Crosse is designated as a Bronze-level community due to its excellent engineering practices, Safe Routes to School planning and activities, and sidewalk standards. Highlights of La Crosse’s application include:

• Most of La Crosse’s elementary and middle school participate in robust, ongoing Safe Routes to School programs. La Crosse also has great community support for SRTS—it is not uncommon to see the Mayor, Superintendent, or members of the University of Wisconsin-La Crosse football team participating in International Walk to School Day, along with 50-100 students per school. Each school has a SRTS liaison to help with weekly events like walking school buses and Walk n’ Roll to School days. The walking school buses have grown in popularity; 5-50 students participating at each of the six schools with weekly events. The city also has an excellent SRTS Plan that includes inventories and recommendations for each school.
• La Crosse has good annual programs for upgrading curb ramps for ADA compliance and for repainting the city’s 260+ crosswalks.
• La Crosse has 17 bridges, all of which include pedestrian accommodations on at least one side! The city recently completed a bicycle/pedestrian bridge that will connect to a bicycle trail currently under construction.
• Sidewalks in La Crosse must be six feet wide and the prioritization criteria for new sidewalk construction are written into the city’s municipal code. The first priority is routes leading to schools or city bus stops.