The Safe Routes to School program five E’s framework started about 15 years ago and an additional E was added in recent years. The original E’s included: Education, Encouragement, Enforcement, Evaluation, and Engineering. The sixth E added later was Equity. As of June 2020, The national Safe Routes Partnership has officially dropped Enforcement as one of the 6 E’s.
 
Although the focus of the Enforcement E has already shifted in past years to leverage community approaches to safety and deprioritize police as a critical part of traffic safety initiatives, the Safe Routes Partnership has decided that is not enough. The Safe Routes Partnership is “committed to continuing to take clear and decisive steps to undo the systems that prevent Black people, Indigenous people, and people of color from moving around the world safely, healthily, joyfully, and in their full expression of self.”

Replacing the Enforcement E with an Engagement E helps to achieve that mission. Changes are underway to existing resources to reflect the change, and new guidance will be provided on how to promote Safe Routes to School programs with the six E’s updates. 

Read more here.