More than 60 percent of elementary and middle school parents in Lawrence believe their child’s school does nothing to encourage students to walk or bike to class, health officials said Wednesday.

Teachers, parents, city commissioners, engineers, Mayor Mike Amyx and others — about 70 in total — gathered at West Middle School on Wednesday to begin collaborating on the Safe Routes to School project, which aims to make vast infrastructure improvements to schools’ accessibility by foot and bicycle.

Over the next several years, the project could result in changes to street design and better enforcement of traffic laws. But after the Lawrence-Douglas County Health Department unveiled more data from its first round of research Wednesday, officials believed increased education and encouragement would be the place where an impact could quickly be made.

“There’s probably a lot of room for improvement for schools that want to be more aggressive and encourage kids to walk and bike,” said Charlie Bryan, the health department’s community health planner. “That’s a great place to start.”

According to the survey, which has input from 1,673 parents, the top three concerns parents have regarding their child walking or bike to school involved traffic infrastructure: the safety of intersections, the amount of traffic on a given road and speed of the traffic along the route.

Improving those types of things will take time. At the meeting Wednesday, attendees broke up into “teams” that represented each of the 18 public and private elementary and middle schools that contributed to the study. Team members drafted a list of recommendations and concerns regarding their school’s accessibility.

Over the years, those teams will work with officials from the health department, Lawrence school district, city of Lawrence, LiveWell Lawrence and the Lawrence-Douglas County Metropolitan Planning Organization to secure grant funding to accomplish various tasks.

“We want them to get their thoughts in order,” Bryan said.

Brian Edie, 38, said he attended the event to address the traffic congestion his two daughters must navigate when they sometimes walk to Sunset Hill.

“I think (the initiative) is fantastic,” he said. “It’s going to tackle a lot of issues.”