By Jay Shenai
Thanks to more than a quarter of a million dollars in federal grant money, students walking and biking to Robert Frost Elementary School should see some improvements on their route next fall.
In January, the City of Silverton was awarded $279,000 by Oregon’s Safe Routes To School program. The grant will fund improvements at several crosswalks and intersections as well as the construction of a bike shelter on school grounds. Work is to begin this summer.
For Community Development Director Steve Kay, who spearheaded the grant application process for Silverton, the award came as especially good news. Kay began the process almost two years ago as a consultant for the city, in the spring of 2008. Announcement of the award came a little over seven months after the state’s call for 2010 applications closed last June, and after more than a year of student tallies and surveys with parents and school administrators.
Statewide, only seven other projects were awarded grants, and of those, only three will be able to start work this fiscal year.
“We’re definitely excited, So much time had passed, it was a surprise,” he said. “This is a huge win for the community.”
SRTS specifically targets kindergarten- through 8th-grade schools. Of Silverton’s schools, Robert Frost was determined to be most in need of improvements, Kay said, and most likely to win funding.
Project planners initially set out to determine reasons parents might be against their children walking or biking. Among their findings, they discovered a significant number of families with school-age children living in the Park Terrace area, a neighborhood with no sidewalks. Students in this area are forced to walk in the street. As a result, the city is planning to add sidewalks to Eureka Avenue.
Also, curbs will be modified and extended at the intersections of South Street and Westfield, and South Street and West Main Street. Additional crosswalk signage will be installed at these intersections. The crosswalk at Eureka and Main also will be modified, to reduce walking distance.
In addition, a bicycle shelter will be installed on the school grounds. City officials will work with the school to pinpoint an exact location.
The city will begin planning and engineering for the projects this month. Kay said the projects are an opportunity to be proactive in increasing safety for Silverton’s children. “We see it as a win for everybody,” he said.
According to Kay, actual construction is slated to last three to four months, starting this summer. The entire cost of the projects is $329,000; city transportation funds will make up the difference, Kay said. Curb modifications will also include wheelchair ramps, in compliance with the Americans with Disabilities Act, he said.
The state SRTS program is managed by the Oregon Department of Transportation’s Transportation Safety Division. Grants are awarded for infrastructure improvements as well as education and outreach programs. To receive funds, infrastructure projects must be within 2 miles of a school, and cannot exceed $500,000.
Created by the U.S. Congress in August 2005, SRTS is a program of the U.S. Department of Transportation’s Federal Highway Administration, with a four-year budget of $612 million for engineering projects as well as education and outreach. The program focuses on improvements to transportation, health, education and the environment to encourage more students to walk and bicycle to school, in order to reduce childhood obesity as well as traffic congestion. According to program statistics, only 15 percent of children nationwide walk to school, down from 50 percent in 1969, and between 20 and 30 percent of morning rush-hour traffic involves taking children to school.
The national SRTS program is set to expire this year. Five U.S. senators, including Oregon’s Jeff Merkley, are working to reauthorize the program in the transportation bill currently under debate.
