School officials talk about safety

Joe Centers, Norwalk Reflector, Ohio
·2 min read

Dec. 15—NORWALK — Norwalk Public Works Director Aaron Osborn, along with two representatives from Columbus, discussed the Safe Routes to School program at Tuesday's Norwalk City Schools board of education meeting.

Money is made available at no cost through the Ohio Department of Transportation to local communities to "improve and encourage students to walk and bike to school," Osborn said. "It is a community plan."

Safe Routes to School (SRTS) is a federally-funder program to "assist communities in developing and implementing projects and programs that encourage and enable all children in grades K-12 to walk or bike to school safely, according to Tuesday's presentation.

The plan includes both Norwalk City and Norwalk Catholic schools.

Why?

—Safety

—Create healthy habits

—Improve behavior/focus/grades

—Impact on environment

—Reduce congestion

—Bring community together

Elements of SRTS

—Education

—Encouragement

—Enforcement

—Engineering

—Evaluation

—Equality

Funding

—STP assistance

—$5 million annually for Ohio

—K-12

—$500,000 for infrastructure

—$60,000 t0 $120,000 for non-infrastructure

—100% of eligible costs

Team

—Brad Cooley

—Dan Bauman

—Scott Lee

—Aaron Osborn

—Lynne Jenkins

—Matt Mattner

—Grace Habeck

—David Smith

—Mike White

—Jeremy Adato

The group went around town and found a number of concerns, including:

1. Primary walking and biking paths cross major streets

2. Lack of education and programming for walking/biking to school

3. Perceived safety risk for walking/biking to school

4. Perceived safety risk for walking/biking at non-guarded intersections

A number of recommendations were made and the next steps are to share the plan; incorporate comments into plan; finalize recommendations; ODOT review; team endorsement; apply for grants (Jan. 6 to March 3).

Some of the main recommendations were new or enhanced pedestrian crossings at Christie/Warren at Benedict Avenue, Christie and Norwood avenues and Washington Road (at McGuan Park).

Another recommendation was to connect a path around the soccer fields from the middle school to the high school, where many students frequently walk.

The schools are encouraged to hold education programs and a parent outreach campaign, hold a bike rodeo, hold a walk to school day (October), bike to school day/week (May) and have incentive programs.

Also at Tuesday's meeting:

Treasurer Joyce Dupont said the district made a payment in November of more than $900,000 still owed on Norwalk High School. She said there are just three more payments — in November of 2023, 2024 and 2025 — along with six interest payments — and the school will be paid off.