Over $110,000 worth of pedestrian improvements will be added near Barrow Elementary School, off Lumpkin Street, under the Federally funded “Safe Routes to Schools” program, which encourages children to walk and bike to school. Permanent radar-speed signs will show motorists how fast they’re driving along Lumpkin and on Pinecrest Drive, and “countdown” pedestrian timers will be added at the nearby Five Points intersection. Brick-look crosswalks will also be installed. A “safe routes” program to encourage children to walk or bicycle to school has existed at Barrow Elementary since 2005, according to Principal Tad MacMillan. The program has been spearheaded by members of BikeAthens, the local bicycle advocacy group. 

“I probably have 40 children who walk regularly,” McMillan says, adding that some of those walk even in bad weather; but on Walk-and-Bike-to-School Day once a month, some hundred students join a “walking school bus” from St. James Methodist Church, over a mile away, accompanied by several parents. After August, when new neighborhood school zones will be in effect, MacMillan expects more children will walk and bike to school. But many live across busy Milledge Avenue from the school, and crossing at Milledge is the difficulty, he says. On school days, police officers staff nearby school crossings, but some drivers still speed up to catch a light at Rutherford Street, McMillan says.

The school holds safety programs for students, and BikeAthens also sponsors a bike safety program for parents. There have been no injuries of students walking or biking to the school, McMillan added. The Athens-Clarke County government has submitted detailed plans to the Georgia Department of Transportation for similar pedestrian improvements at six other schools, transportation planner Sherry Moore says. From all accounts GDOT has been frustratingly slow to implement the program, making Georgia the last state to begin spending $17 million in Federal money. GDOT says there will be more grants but isn’t yet taking applications.

But while grants for crosswalks improvements will be limited—it’s “seed money,” Moore says—a GDOT “resource center” will help any K-8 school with planning and education programs. Just scoping out paths to schools can be important, says Evelyn Hanes of Safe Kids Athens, which works to reduce accidental child injuries. “When you walk around and look critically at each area, there usually are things that can be done fairly inexpensively,” she says.

Around Chase Street School, that involved repainting crosswalks and cutting shrubs back for visibility. ACC will eventually replace walk lights with “countdown” timers.

The “Safe Routes” movement began in Denmark in the 1970s to overcome barriers to walking to school and spread to other nations. “Physically active kids have improved mood and concentration, a stronger self-image and more self-confidence,” says a Georgia DOT web page. Being overweight brings health risks: an hour of exercise a day is recommended, but many children don’t get that. And children prefer to walk or bike, but parents fear for their safety, yet up to one-fourth of morning traffic is from parents driving students to school, says the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration. When children are hit by cars, it’s often by other parents.

Among those who successfully lobbied Georgia’s Congressional delegation for Safe Routes money and other alternative-transportation programs was Kris Boudreau of BikeAthens. But even after the program was funded, it took a letter from several Georgia Congressmen to shake the Federal money loose from the Georgia Department of Transportation. “They’re being obstructionist about certain changes in federal policy that don’t appeal to them,” Boudreau says. 

BikeAthens organized the Safe Routes pilot program at Barrow Elementary, with support from parents, school staff and others before any federal grants were available. But according to various participants—and despite support from principals, teachers, police and parents—the Clarke County school district’s central office was uncooperative, eventually rejecting the group’s involvement.

Safe Routes Athens participants are philosophical about being shut out, but Boudreau is disappointed that the Safe Routes plan wasn’t funded at Stroud Elementary, “because that was a low-income school and because the obesity epidemic hits poor kids especially hard.” But she hopes that with “a couple of parents and a sympathetic principal or teacher”—plus the institutional support of the Northeast Georgia Regional Development Center—Safe Routes programs will spread. With neighborhood school zones, Boudreau says, “it’ll be much easier for the kids to ride their bikes to school.”

John Huie

johnphuie@gmail.com