In this era of suburban sprawl and parents bypassing the bus to drive their progeny to school, a new wind is blowing. The desire for walkable communities with fitter populations is now being bred at a tender age via the federal Safe Routes to School program.
Last December the Michigan Dept of Transportation announced that 10 Michigan schools will receive $1.4 million in federal Safe Routes to School funds, including a grant totaling $160,840 to Ann Arbor's Thurston Elementary School. The funds are to be used for capital and educational projects to facilitate walking and biking to school.
"It is both a federal program by which Thurston Elementary School and 70-plus other schools in Michigan have received funding, and it's a movement to challenge the attitudes, beliefs, and behaviors of students and families with regard to travel to and from school," explains Lee Kokinakis, senior director of Safe Routes to School.
The Thurston Elementary School project will include, among other things, installing pedestrian refuge islands on Green Road; improving crosswalks and pedestrian accessibility on Green Road at its points of intersection with Gettysburg Road and Burbank Drive; and implementing pedestrian and bicycle safety programs at the school.
Other schools, too, are laying their groundwork. As of December 20 last year, 496 Michigan schools – 26 of which were in Washtenaw County – had registered with the program, according to the Safe Routes to School team. Registration is not the same as submitting a funding application, Kokinakis emphasizes, but it is the initial step a school takes to indicate interest in planning for a safe route to school.
"In cases where the distance is reasonable and where the routes are safe, walking and bicycling [to school] is a very viable alternative," Kokinakis says. "It has many benefits in that it's a very similar alternative to the general walkable community principle."Source: Lee Kokinakis, senior director of Safe Routes to School
Writer: Tanya Muzumdar
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