DC Department of Transportation, Operation Lifesaver Launch Streetcar Safety Education Campaign
WASHINGTON, D.C., September 29, 2014 – Today, District Department of Transportation (DDOT) and Operation Lifesaver, Inc. (OLI) launched a joint, Look, Listen, Be Safe! campaign to educate students and their families about streetcar safety. The campaign is aimed at helping students be safe when interacting with Washington, DC’s new Streetcar system that will begin operation later this year.
Educator toolkits featuring grade-specific lesson plans, activity sheets, posters and parent take-home letters were delivered to K-12 schools along the new Streetcar corridor throughout September. The in-school educational materials were funded by a $25,000 grant from OLI to DDOT last year, as part of an ongoing partnership between OLI and the Federal Transit Administration (FTA). DDOT was one of eight transit agencies to receive an OLI grant in 2013 with funding from FTA.
“Educating students and families will help make safe behavior around the new DC Streetcar system an automatic habit for citizens,” said Joyce Rose, President and CEO of Operation Lifesaver, Inc. “We are happy that our grant will help deliver this lifesaving information to these community schools.”
The DC Streetcar Educator Tool Kit materials, as well as materials from additional OLI-funded passenger rail safety projects, can be viewed on the OLI website at www.oli.org/rail-safety/transit-materials.
With support from FTA, OLI provides grants to state OL programs and transit agencies to support local partnerships for the development and implementation of creative safety programs and materials to help keep those in their communities safer.
“The Federal Transit Administration is pleased to partner once again with Operation Lifesaver,” said FTA Acting Administrator Therese McMillan. “As more and more communities around the nation choose to build light rail, streetcars, and other transit services that operate alongside pedestrians, bicyclists, and drivers, we must continue to educate everyone on the importance of putting safety first.”
To compete for OLI transit education grants of up to $25,000, transit agencies are required to meet a 25 percent non-federal funding match, their proposed programs must focus on safety education or public awareness initiatives, and they must make use of OLI-approved materials and logos and be coordinated through a state OL program.
OLI recently announced eleven grant winners in 10 states for 2014, including: Sacramento Regional Transit District, Sacramento, Calif.; City of Atlanta, Atlanta, Ga.; Rio Metro Regional Transit District, Albuquerque, N.M.; Illinois Operation Lifesaver/Metra, Greater Chicago, Ill., area; Dallas Area Rapid Transit (DART), Dallas, Texas; New Jersey Transit, Greater Newark, N.J., area; Bi-State Development Agency (d/b/a Metro in the greater St. Louis, Mo., area); Fort Worth Transportation Authority/The T, Ft. Worth, Texas; Ohio Operation Lifesaver/Greater Cleveland Regional Transit Authority (GCRTA), Cleveland, Ohio; Utah Transit Authority (UTA), Greater Salt Lake City, Utah area; and Valley Metro, Phoenix, Ariz.
About Operation Lifesaver
Operation Lifesaver's (OLI) mission is to end collisions, deaths and injuries at highway-rail grade crossings and along railroad rights of way. A national network of trained volunteers provides free presentations on rail safety. Learn more at http://www.oli.org; follow OLI on Facebook, Twitter, Instagram and Pinterest.
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