FAIRLAWN -- The federal government is offering money for projects that encourage students to walk or bike to school each day, and New River Valley localities hope to get their share.

The program offering no-match grants is titled Safe Routes to School. Between now and the 2009 fiscal year, Virginia's share will be $13.3 million of a national $612 million appropriation.

Jakob Helmboldt, the Virginia Department of Transportation representative coordinating the program in Virginia, outlined its requirements to groups in Pulaski and Montgomery counties at separate meetings Monday.

The idea behind the legislation is to encourage biking or walking to school for students through eighth grade, make bike routes more safe and appealing, promote healthier lifestyles and decrease motorized traffic.

At one time, biking and walking were the preferred ways to reach school unless students lived a good distance away, Helmboldt said. "I grew up in a small town in New England and basically everyone walked or biked."

That is no longer the case, he said.

According to a study by the California-based Parisi & Associates, 25 percent of morning traffic in most localities is generated by students being driven to school. While 90 percent of those living within a mile of school biked or walked in 1965, he said, fewer than 32 percent do today.

That is seen as part of the reason for the epidemic of obesity this country, he said. "Obese and overweight kids become obese and overweight adults."

The program targets schools with grades kindergarten through eight for a two-mile radius around them. Applicants can be the schools themselves, local governments, citizens' groups or individuals. "It can be virtually anyone," he said.

But before any of them can get any project money, they must come up with a plan to create or improve bike routes.

The program offers some of its money to applicants to help them come up with a plan, Helmboldt said. But the bulk of the funding is reserved for the projects themselves.

Projects can include infrastructure and safety improvements such as signs, markings and sidewalks.

If a locality already has a plan in place that includes bike accommodations and can be tweaked, it is ahead of the game. But the only Virginia localities in that position so far have been Arlington and Charlottesville, Helmboldt said.

Shawn Utt, Radford's public relations officer and grant writer, attended one of Monday's briefings. Later, Utt said Radford is ahead of the curve in preparing for safe bike routes because it already has several miles of biking pathways in the city. It has also been including bike lanes when it does street construction, he said.

Program grants for each school locality can be up to $25,000 for the planning part and up to $500,000 for a project.

Some Virginia localities actually have regulations prohibiting bike paths, because of liability issues, Helmboldt said. For an applicant to come from one of those localities, that prohibition would have to be removed.

Any project must also fit in with a locality's future transportation plan, he said, to make sure the project is not covered over in a few years by a road expansion or something similar.