43
Warren hopes sidewalk repairs will increase number of students walking or riding bikes to school
By Ed Runyan
WARREN
Warren city, Trumbull County and Warren schools officials are celebrating the award of a $400,000 Ohio Department of Transportation Safe Routes To School grant.
The money will be used to repair sidewalks and add curb ramps during the summer of 2020 on four streets near the four Warren city pre-K to eighth-grade schools.
Curb ramps are cut into curbs to make it possible for a bicycle or wheelchair to safely cross a road.
The goal of the program is to “encourage and enable students in grades K to 8 to walk or ride their bicycle to school,” according to the ODOT website.
The award letter the city received says applications were ranked based on criteria such as percentage of student body classified as economically disadvantaged, percentage of students with disabilities and percentage of students expected to benefit from the project.
The city’s engineering department applied for the grant after approval by Warren City Council in February. Partners in the project are the school district, county Planning Commission, Warren Police Department and Community Bus Services.
The sidewalks getting upgrades are Fifth Street between Tod and Highland avenues Southwest near Jefferson school, Milton Street between Niles Road and Central Parkway Southeast near Willard school, Tod Avenue between Englesson and Dunstan drives Northwest near McGuffey school, and Atlantic Street between Elm Road and Fairway Drive Northeast near Lincoln school.
The sidewalks are near the schools because the school district provides busing to students living more than 1 mile from school but not those closer than 1 mile.
Data from the 2015-2016 school year show that nearly all of the school district’s four Pre-K to Grade 8 school students were economically disadvantaged.
City and school officials compiled a Safe Routes To School plan that was submitted to the state before the city could apply for the grant, said Chris Stephenson, Warren grants and projects coordinator.
The Safe Routes To School committee that wrote the plan said its “vision” for safe routes to school is that walking and riding bicycles will become the “modes of choice for students who live within a mile of school.”
The plan says its vision is also that students will walk and bicycle safely, that sidewalks will be shoveled in winter, well maintained, that motorists will travel at safe speeds and school zones will be clearly marked.
“It’s nice to know the sidewalks will be repaired to give [students] nice sidewalks to go to and from their homes,” said Michael Wasser, executive director of business operations for Warren Schools.
School data from 2017 show that the percentages of students who walk or ride a bicycle to and from school varies by school.
The highest percentage is at the Willard and Jefferson schools at 18 percent, McGuffey at 12 percent and Lincoln about 6 percent.
The school with the highest percentage of students living within 1 mile is Jefferson at 88 percent, followed by Lincoln at 54 percent, Willard at 48 percent and McGuffey at 38 percent.
For the study, parents were asked their opinion of children walking or riding a bicycle to school in 2017. They said some of the biggest barriers are violence or crime, weather, safety of intersections and crossings, traffic and distance.
Parents also expressed concerns about missing sidewalks, sidewalks in disrepair, children crossing busy streets and snow being plowed onto sidewalks, especially on Youngstown Road Southeast.
The study provides numerous suggestions for ways barriers to walking or bike riding can be overcome, such as a bicycle-helmet education campaign, student-pedestrian and bicycle-safety education assemblies and a parent safety-education campaign.