SRPEDD works with local partners to coordinate and support education and outreach activities that encourage safe, responsible road user behavior.
Engaging families and youth through hands-on and interactive activities helps increase opportunities to practice road safety. It allows people of all ages to contribute to future road safety activities and provide valuable feedback for planning initiatives.
An example of an effective opportunity to learn about road safety is a traffic garden. A traffic garden is a network of small painted roadways designed to help youth and new cyclists learn the rules of the road and practice walking, biking, and rolling in a safe, car-free environment. SRPEDD staff have been actively assisting the City of Fall River and community partners with planning for the region’s first ever traffic garden to help families develop safe street habits.
October 18, 2025 - SRPEDD staff in partnership with Mass in Motion Fall River, Safe Routes to School (SRTS), and Fall River Love Your Block held a pop-up traffic garden bike event at Travassos Park, where more than 100 kids engaged with a chalk-painted street network and received free helmets, safety gear, and some even a bike.
March 28, 2026 - SRPEDD staff, Fall River, and Safe Routes to School partners engaged youth and families to gather feedback on what they would like to see as a permanent traffic garden design at Travassos Park in Fall River. Kids designed their own traffic garden using stickers and an aerial image of the park along with traffic educational vocabulary in Portuguese, Spanish, and Haitian Creole. This feedback helped plan a second pop-up event at the park.
Additionally, children enjoyed learning how to be a safe pedestrian by walking through a mini-spray-painted network of crosswalks and stop signs. Staff learned about children’s walking and biking routes to school using an interactive map and marble activities.
Partners increased local youth leadership in the project by connecting with Stanley Street Treatment and Resources’ BOLDER Coalition and its MeB4Use healthy choices campaign, Citizens for Citizens, the Fall River Young Marines, and the Bristol Black Collective. Youth members of these organizations shared their experiences using Fall River streets, ideas for traffic garden signage and artwork, and how they would like to assist with future project activities. Their ideas were incorporated in the July 2026 pop-up event, which included the desire for crosswalks and stop signs, simulating realistic street conditions like interaction with emergency vehicles, and learning more about e-bikes and how to navigate one ways.
The following resources provide more information about traffic gardens and how to use them:
More information about Safe Routes to School and safe street design can be found using the button below.