City
and Pflugerville ISD partner on Safe Routes to School Plan, parent survey
crucial to program’s success
January 24, 2008 – PFLUGERVILLE, TX – In an effort to encourage and enable Pflugerville’s
children to walk and bike to school in the safest possible environment, the
City of Pflugerville and Pflugerville Independent School District have
partnered together to create a comprehensive and sustainable Safe Routes to
School Plan for Pflugerville’s schools. In the upcoming weeks, parents will be
surveyed about the barriers and dangers that their children currently face in
biking and walking to Pflugerville schools, so that needed improvements can be
included in the plan.
Through the 2005 passage of the Safe, Accountable,
Flexible, Efficient Transportation Equity Act: A Legacy for Users, Congress
designated $612 million towards developing the National Safe Routes to School
Program (with Texas anticipating approximately $40 million in funding between
2005 and 2009). The Safe Routes to School (SRTS) Program in Texas is managed
by the Texas Department of Transportation (TxDOT), and was initiated with the
following objectives:
1.
Enable and encourage children in
grades K-8, including those with disabilities, to walk and bicycle to school;
2.
Make bicycling and walking to
school a safer and more appealing transportation alternative, thereby
encouraging a healthy and active lifestyle from an early age;
3.
Facilitate the planning,
development, and implementation of projects and activities that will improve
safety and reduce traffic, fuel consumption, and air pollution in the vicinity
of schools.
The City of Pflugerville applied for and was awarded a grant for $10,000 from the Texas Department of
Transportation Safe Routes to School Program to create a Safe Routes to School
Plan for elementary and middle school campuses within the City limits. These
campuses include Brookhollow, Caldwell, Highland Park, Murchison, Pflugerville,
Rowe Lane, Springhill, Timmerman, Windermere Primary and Windermere
elementary schools, and Kelly Lane, Park Crest and Pflugerville middle
schools. Pflugerville ISD intends to incorporate elements from the Safe Routes
to School Plan at its campuses that do not fall within the Pflugerville city
limits.
The City has contracted with
Alliance Transportation Group, Inc., a planning and traffic engineering firm,
to assist with the necessary data collection, planning and creation of the SRTS
Plan. The plan will identify safety hazards, current and potential walking and
bicycling routes to school, and activities that will incorporate each of the “5
E’s” (Engineering, Education, Enforcement, Encouragement, Evaluation) to create
a comprehensive program. Existing transportation routes that are most likely
to be used for walking or biking to school, within a two-mile radius of each
campus, will be studied and evaluated to identify possible areas of
improvement.
The first step to evaluating each school campus is the
distribution of a parent take-home survey in all Pflugerville ISD elementary
and middle schools. This survey will gather information about factors that
affect whether parents allow their children to walk or bike to school; the
presence of unsafe conditions along routes to school; and other background
information. Results of the survey will help determine how to improve
conditions for children to walk or bike to school. Parents of kindergarten
through 8th grade students in Pflugerville ISD should receive a
take-home survey by Friday, February 8, and are asked to return their completed
surveys no later than Friday, February 15 to their children’s teachers. If a
parent does not receive the take-home survey and would like to receive a copy,
they should contact the front office at their child’s school for more
information. Participation in this survey is essential to the creation of the
SRTS Plan, as it provides a much clearer picture of the specific issues that
face each school campus.
"We
are very excited about creating yet another partnership with the City of Pflugerville to create safer routes to our campuses,” affirmed Randy Reese, Pflugerville
ISD Assistant Superintendent. “The Safe Routes to School program supports
several of Pflugerville ISD's goals, including student safety and
wellness. Creating safe routes to our campuses will help encourage
walking and biking to school, which will help combat childhood obesity.
It is a win-win for our entire community."
Once the SRTS Plan is complete, it will be submitted to
the Texas Department of Transportation for its approval. The plan then becomes
an integral part of any grant application submitted by the City and
Pflugerville ISD to request funding for the implementation of infrastructure
projects identified in the plan. The City and Pflugerville ISD will also be
planning educational programs and events around the SRTS Plan, which will be
announced at a later date.
“By implementing Safe Routes to School in
Pflugerville, we are not only making our neighborhoods safer for school
children – we are also helping to reduce traffic, fuel consumption and air
pollution around our schools,” stated Mayor Jeff Coleman, champion of the
Pflugerville SRTS Program. “A Safe Routes to School plan will be a significant
asset to our community as it continues to grow and transform.”
For more information on the Safe Routes to School
Program, visit the Texas Department of Transportation website at
www.dot.state.tx.us/services/traffic_operations/safe_routes_to_school/.
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