Parents Examine Safer Routes for Rodgers Forge's Walkers
By Tyler Waldman
For the parents of some Rodgers Forge Elementary School students, walking home is an iffy proposition, fraught with unclear crosswalks and the occasional speeding car.
A Rodgers Forge parent who works as an urban planner now aims to find a safe route.
Stu Sirota is leading a group of eight parents and community members to get Rodgers Forge participating in Safe Routes to School. The national program, established by Congress in 2005, aims to get more students walking and biking to school instead of driving and busing.
Sirota has unique experience in dealing with traffic issues—he was a planning consultant on the Walkable Towson plan in 2007 and 2008, a plan that included the new urban design guidelines and the Washington Avenue streetscape.
In 1969, 50 percent of students walked or biked to school, according to statistics from the Safe Routes to School National Partnership. Now, less than 15 percent do.
Sirota said the group conducted a survey for two days in June and found that roughly 65 percent of Rodgers Forge's 395 students now walk instead of catching a ride—leaps and bounds ahead of the national average. Sirota said, however, when considering that Rodgers Forge Elementary's district is just three-tenths of a square mile, the figure leaves plenty of room for improvement.
"All the houses in Rodgers Forge are within an easy short walk [of the school]," Sirota said. "Our goal is to educate and encourage families that aren't walking who could be walking."
Sirota, who has two children at Rodgers Forge Elementary and one more to start in 2012, said physical changes could range from new sidewalks to traffic islands.
"There's a whole traffic calming toolkit out there," Sirota said.
Maryland received $3.5 million in federal funds for the 2011 fiscal year to complete such improvements.
Other tactics don't cost anything. Those include "walking school buses" in neighborhoods, or bike groups.
Sirota said he hopes to start a blog soon to court community feedback. The group also plans to meet with elected officials and school system administrators.
"We've already reached out to them and we hope to be able to partner with them," he said. "It's still an evolving process right now."