By DANA KIMPTON
neighborhoods@ColumbiaMissourian.com
Today’s students do not walk or ride their bikes to school as often as previous generations did.
They do not engage in as much physical activity and don’t lead “free range” lifestyles.
This has led to growing childhood obesity rates and decreases in self-esteem. Even if children want to walk or bike to school, the community is not always friendly to pedestrians and cyclists.
Those issues brought about 65 stakeholders to a Safe Routes to School community action planning meeting at Grant Elementary School on March 18.
Ian Thomas, executive director of PedNet, and Mark Fenton, consultant and host of America’s Walking on PBS, hosted the event.
Safe Routes to School is a national organization that “focuses on safety and developing healthy habits of active transportation,” Thomas said.
During the meeting, stakeholders from Columbia Public Schools, Columbia Police Department, the city’s planning and public works departments, Columbia Public Library, Grant Elementary’s surrounding neighborhoods and PedNet voiced their concerns and spoke about what improvements they would like to see in the community.
“I am concerned about the traffic,” Beverly Borduin, principal of Grant Elementary, said. “We have two priorities here at Grant: safety and learning.”
Safety was a major concern during the meeting, as well as finding ways to encourage more students to walk or bike to school.
Participants proposed these steps as a start:
- Distribute/collect parent and school surveys: How do you get to school now and why?
- Identify existing, potential goat trails
- Research safe, alternate drop-off and pick-up locations for parents
- Fully audit existing sidewalk conditions
- Create a map of where children come from, coded by mode of travel; identify dense pockets
- Develop preferred walk/bike routes based on existing student distribution and facilities
- Engineering study of possible road treatments (lane reduction on Broadway, one-way traffic flow on Garth, raised crosswalks, etc)
- Evaluate altering arrival/dismissal times
Jerry Wade, a candidate for the City Council’s Fourth Ward, said he recognized difficulties facing pedestrians walking to Grant Elementary School at the meeting.
“You are a truly downtown urban school,” he told attendees.
Unlike many elementary schools, Grant does not have an established drop-off/pick-up area for parents and cars. Parents pick up their children on the west side of the school near the intersection of Garth and Broadway. Speeding along these two streets has always been a concern for parents and school administrators.
During the meeting, city planners, engineers and police officers addressed the matter of traffic flow around the school.
“We’re actually working on trying to make changes,” Tim Moriarty, a lieutenant in the Columbia Police Department, said about the speeding cars around the school.
Moriarty also suggested that crossing guards at Grant be trained by police to help standardize the way traffic is directed.
Other suggestions included these:
- Affirm commitment to recess as an integral part of learning
- Expand current physical activity focus and culture inside curriculum
- Promote walking/biking to and from school and during the school day
- Launch more Walking School Bus routes
- Promote parent pick-up/drop-off locations that are a short walk from the school
- Develop formal pick-up/drop-off at a nearby remote site (cemetery, Osco Drug Store, West Parkway)
- Monthly walk/bike promotions at school (e.g. “Walking Wednesday” or “Footloose Friday”)
- Building curriculum-based projects and education around health and sustainability impacts of physical activity
- School-based walk/bike safety and skills training
- Comprehensive social marketing campaign promoting walking/biking to parents and community (signs, PSAs, neighborhood picnics)
- Discourage parking at crosswalk
- Place mobile centerline “Yield to Pedestrian” signs at crosswalks
- Provide more secure bicycle parking on school grounds
- Mark a walking loop (with distance) on campus
- Launch sidewalk construction and repair campaign for priority segments
- Raised crosswalk and traffic-calming on Garth Avenue
- Engage the community in possible changes through community workshops, advocacy, etc.
- Reduce lanes on Broadway
- Make Garth Avenue one way or close it during arrival and dismissal times
- Mark more crosswalks around the school
Borduin emphasized Grant’s commitment to exercise.
“We believe in activity,” she said. “The Walking School Bus has helped a lot, but we’re always open to anything else.
About 40 Grant students are involved in the Walking School Bus program, sponsored by PedNet.
Jack Jensen, assistant superintendent of Columbia Public Schools, said he is optimistic about the outcome of meetings like this one.
“This is making a difference in Columbia Public Schools,” Jensen said.
Richard Stone, of the Columbia Public Works Department, said that the city of Columbia wants to have meetings at up to five more schools in the near future. Last Tuesday, another Safe Routes to School Community Action Meeting was held at Shepard Elementary School.
City officials are also hopeful that more similar meetings to this one at Grant will help encourage students and the rest of the community to engage in more physically active forms of transportation.
“The calls for action that come out of this process will be heard by the school, the school district and the city,” Wade said.
In 2007, a similar community action meeting was held at West Boulevard Elementary School. After the meeting, the city of Columbia received a $15,725 Safe Routes to School grant through the Missouri Department of Transportation.
PedNet coordinated use of that money to organize alternate drop-off locations for buses, two “walk-to-school” days every week and promote the existing Walking School Bus program.
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