Safe Routes to Healthy Food in Bellevue

Having safe options for walking or taking transit to healthy food is an important way to maintain independence, health and community connections – at any age.

With funding from AARP's Community Challenge grant, the Safe Routes Partnership worked with community members from the Bellevue neighborhood in SE DC (Ward 8) to improve traffic safety and connections to healthy food through a traffic safety demonstration and series of traffic-themed community art workshops.

Access to food has been a leading concern for Ward 8 residents. There has been only one grocery store servicing 80,000 people, 30 percent of whom are over the age of 45. Bellevue residents face long commutes to the grocery store often relying on multiple forms of transit.

This project coincides with the arrival of Ward 8’s second grocery store, Good Food Markets. Safe Routes to Healthy Food for Older Adults aims to celebrate this milestone while raising awareness about the transportation issues residents face while trying to access food – an important part of a livable community.

Activities included a temporary crosswalk (as shown in the image above), and traffic safety demonstration in collaboration with older adults, community partners, local businesses and area schools. Learn more the project on the Safe Routes Partnership website here.

Questions about this project? Please contact Kori Johnson at kori@saferoutespartnership.org