Caltrans grant aimed at making walking, biking to school safer
A $283,000 Caltrans grant should make for safer walking and biking to school for Davis children.
The Safe Routes to School grant, awarded to the city in October, will fund speed boards at every school, purchase additional scan-and-notify systems, create a parent education and incentive program and finance walk/bike audits at every elementary and junior high school.
The latter will result in comprehensive walking and biking maps for each school as well as an assessment of infrastructure needs.
“Improving the programs and infrastructure Davis already has in place to ensure safe biking to schools is key to expanding the benefits of our bike culture,” said Davis Mayor Joe Krovoza.
“Safe cycling and walking launch positive lifelong habits and contribute to Davis’ quality of life,” he added. “This grant will further increase the comfort of parents who encourage their children to travel to school independently.”
Rachel Hartsough, coordinator of the city’s Street Smarts Program, said the funding won’t actually be in place until late spring, so parents and students aren’t likely to see the benefits of the grant until the end of the school year. But once in place, the effects will be immediate, she said.
“The money will be going into very tangible things at the schools (and) will have a huge impact as far as making things safer,” she said.
Speed boards are just one example. The large electronic boards detect and flash back to drivers the speed at which they are traveling, presumably reminding speeders to slow down. Speeding, city officials say, is the No. 1 safety complaint they receive in Davis.
The boards, which will be placed at all elementary schools and junior highs, including some private schools, also will capture that data for the Davis Police Department, which then will help determine enforcement areas.
Additional information will come from the bike/walk audits, Hartsough said. The city will be working with consultants who will create focus groups of school administrators, parents, the Police Department, students and city personnel.
“They will walk and ride the routes around schools and specify areas that are the safest, as well as obstacles,” Hartsough said.
In addition to creating safe-route maps for each school, the audits also will result in a grant-ready document identifying needed infrastructure changes.
“It will be a ready document for the next round of grant requests that will lay out where additional signage is needed, or other changes that are needed,” Hartsough said.
Grant funds also will be used to purchase additional scan-and-notify systems.
Currently, there is only one school in Davis — Birch Lane Elementary — using the system, which was created by the Saveagallon program. Students wear wristbands with bar code tags that they scan when they arrive at school by bike or by walking. An automated email, text or phone call is then sent to their parents, informing them the child has arrived safely at school.
In addition to the parental notification, the system also allows students to keep track of the miles they’ve logged using alternative transportation.
Hartsough said the city will use grant funds to buy several scan-and-notify kits that would be lent to elementary schools and junior highs on a rotating basis. The kits would be designed so they can be easily set up and used by a PTA volunteer or even an older student.
Finally, the Caltrans grant will fund a parent education/incentive program, with things like downtown Davis gift cards being awarded to parents who encourage their children to walk or bike to school.
In addition to the environmental and health benefits of walking and biking to school, Birch Lane Principal Kathy Tyzzer noted one more reason parents should be on board.
“Students who ride their bikes or walk to school are almost always on time,” she said,”whereas students who are dropped off by parents are subject to the needs and timelines of all family members.”
While the Caltrans grant itself provides funding to the city, the Street Smarts program, which Hartsough coordinates, relies heavily on fundraising, particularly local business sponsors, to fund activities like bike rodeos, prizes for contests and such.
For more information about Street Smarts, visit www.cityofdavis.org/streetsmarts or contact Hartsough at (530) 757-5640 or rhartsough@cityofdavis.org.
— Reach Anne Ternus-Bellamy at aternus@davisenterprise.net or (530) 747-8051.
Short URL: http://www.davisenterprise.com/?p=105408
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Posted by Anne Ternus-Bellamy
on Nov 21 2011.
Last Login: Mon 21 May 2012 01:17:01 PM PDT
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