case study
Parents know the quiet fear that creeps in once the front door shuts and their child sets off for school. Will they get there safely? For many families, these are not just anxious thoughts but urgent realities shaped by unsafe roads, missing sidewalks, and deeper challenges tied to safety, education, and community issues. When a child is injured on the way to class or misses school because the route feels too risky, it is not just a transportation issue—it’s a community failure.
Metro, the regional government serving 1.7 million residents in the greater Portland, Oregon, area, took a careful look at how kids travel to school, and recognized that stronger policies were needed. Metro staff needed a smarter way to see the problem. With the help of geographic information system (GIS) technology, Metro has begun reshaping how communities protect young commuters by turning static reports and disparate datasets into a comprehensive application that Portlanders can access to make more informed decisions on pedestrian safety.
Getting to school should be safe and easy, but for many students, it is neither. Variables like traffic, missing sidewalks, and unsafe intersections can turn a short walk, a bike ride, or a bus ride into a daily risk. To address these challenges, Metro launched the Safe Routes to School (SRTS) program to promote students’ walking and rolling safely, but it lacked a clear method for identifying the safest routes or the most critical safety gaps. While Metro had previously gathered data to support its regional understanding of school needs, staff needed up-to-date data and a way to share that data with a growing number of SRTS programs in the region.
Recently, Metro developed a powerful tool to help. Hosted by ArcGIS Enterprise and built using ArcGIS Experience Builder, the new Regional Safe Routes to School Walkshed Analysis app maps over 330 schools across the region and gives planners, regional partners, and communities a clear, interactive way to explore school walksheds and identify where safety improvements like new sidewalks, crossing guards, or safer intersections can make the biggest impact.
At the heart of the app is a custom-radar chart—powered by ArcGIS Network Analyst, spatial analysis extension in ArcGIS Pro—that evaluates each school’s walkshed using a range of dynamic transportation and demographic factors. These include crashes, sidewalk availability, and the percentage of students who have a disability. The app calculates a vulnerability index for each school area and visualizes it through the radar chart, allowing users to quickly assess the safety needs surrounding their school, as well as better understand the school’s student demographics.
Metro’s Safe Routes to School Walkshed Analysis methodology table defines and sources key variables clarifying how walkshed scores are calculated. It uses data from Metro, Oregon Department of Transportation, and Oregon Department of Education that is regularly updated.
“As users interact with the app, they can click on individual schools or gain a comprehensive understanding of which school walksheds may pose greater risks,” said Julie Stringham, Metro senior geospatial developer. “It is a simple, powerful way for the community to explore school walksheds and identify areas that may need more attention.”
The app provides a dynamic, data-driven platform that empowers communities to make informed decisions. As Noel Mickelberry, senior transportation planner at Metro, noted, “I found our previous analyses to provide such helpful data but thought that the information should be more accessible to all our partners.” Now, with the app, that vision is a reality.
With Metro’s Regional Safe Routes to School Walkshed Analysis app, the public can zoom in to and out of their respective neighborhoods and see where nearby schools’ walksheds rank.
Although this app supports many planning efforts within Metro, the impact goes beyond staff use. For the first time, families, school employees, and community groups can explore this information themselves. The interactive design makes it easy to advocate for changes, apply for funding, or better understand the challenges students face. This kind of open access helps build trust and includes everyone.
The app also fosters collaboration. Metro, the Portland Bureau of Transportation, and local municipal governments across the region now use the same data to guide decisions. This has led to better coordination, more consistent planning, and smarter resource allocation, especially in communities with the greatest safety and equity needs.
Stringham added, “The app is not just a high-tech solution, it is something that meets a real need. Projects like this serve a very direct and important need in our region,” she said. “This is going to end up impacting the lives of families in the Portland region, which would help bring more visibility towards decision-makers to allocate funding for new sidewalks to be made.”
This app supports nearby cities by helping local officials identify and prioritize the areas where pedestrian infrastructure is most needed. As a regional government agency, Metro serves 24 cities and three counties, which may individually lack the data or tools to target sidewalk and safety improvements effectively. This app fills that gap by offering actionable insights into which schools need attention most. Metro provides the app as a shared resource to help coordinate efforts across cities. It also supports funding applications by offering data that can justify requests for programs like Regional Travel Options (RTO). Cities are encouraged to use the app to strengthen their proposals and secure funding for critical infrastructure. Together, these efforts impact ~186,000 students and their communities, making daily travel safer and more accessible.
Users can also turn on the school district layer and see how a specific school ranks in comparison to the district’s average. This provides insight into where infrastructure investments need to be prioritized.
“The backbone of this tool is the enterprise data we’ve carefully maintained, but the real value comes from how it inspires action,” Jake Lovell, Metro geospatial product specialist, explained. “It is not just about making our own data more accessible; it is about empowering partners across the region to plan smarter, apply for funding more effectively, and replicate this model for other critical programs. This has become a service for innovation, both within Metro and beyond.”
Looking ahead, the Metro team plans to connect this work with other major safety efforts across the region, including the organization’s Safe Streets for All and Vision Zero initiatives. These programs share the goal of making streets safer for everyone, especially the most vulnerable road users.
As Metro continues to modernize its tools and data strategies, this project stands as a strong example of how technology can support safer, smarter, and more equitable transportation not just for students but for entire communities.
Learn more about Metro’s Safe Routes to School and Safe Streets for All program.
The app is not just a high-tech solution; it is something that meets a real need. Projects like this serve a very direct and important need in our region. This is going to end up impacting the lives of families in the Portland region, which would help bring more visibility towards decision-makers to allocate funding for new sidewalks to be made.
Learn more about the products used in this story
Esri offers multiple product options for your organization, and users can use ArcGIS Online, ArcGIS Enterprise, ArcGIS Pro, or ArcGIS Location Platform as their foundation. Once the foundational product is established, a wide variety of apps and extensions are available.