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‘Safe Routes to School’ taking shape

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Written by Aaron Cedeño

Wednesday, 02 September 2009 08:00

When Steve Petrehn imagines what he would like to see for Louisburg neighborhoods and schools, the vision is positively idyllic.

Becky Bowes, principal at Rockville Elementary School, walks a group of students home from school on Friday afternoon. Bowes started a ‘Walking Wednesdays’ program at the close of the 2008-2009 school year, and hopes to build greater interest and participation this year. (Photo by Aaron Cedeño)

Petrehn is currently working with the Louisburg school district as a part of the Safe Routes to School program, after he and his firm — the Kansas City-based Bridging the Gap — were contracted by the city in May to meet the program’s educational component.

Safe Routes to School is a national initiative, but Petrehn feels that it could impact Louisburg on a much more personal level. Designed to help increase local awareness in child pedestrian safety, while promoting walking and biking to school as an alternative form of transportation, he envisions a Louisburg where “walking school buses” are the norm, and neighbors see their kids off together each day.

“It’s a pretty simple thing to do, if we all think about it,” Petrehn said. “If we all take a bit of responsibility for it in our communities.”

Things have started off somewhat slowly for the program. A block party was held in early August to help drum up adult volunteers willing to walk a group of children to and from school each day, but the response was limited.

At about the same time the city was formally contracting Petrehn last year, Rockville Elementary School principal Becky Bowes was trying to drum up some interest of her own. A resident herself of the nearby Summerfield Farms subdivision, she found she enjoyed the occasional walk to work each day. With many of her own students living in the neighborhoods Summerfield Farms, Rockville Place or Harvest Glen, and Safe Routes to School in the local news, she decided to start a “Walking Wednesdays” session.

With an average of 15 students participating each week, Bowes considered the small experiment a success — something she hopes to build on this year. Currently, a group of 8 to 10 students walk home from Rockville each day.
“I’m going to probably start it here in the fall again,” Bowes said, of trying to recruit more students for the daily walk. “I’m going to try and kick it off maybe the first week after Labor Day.”

Having a visible member of the community like Bowes help organize and spread the word can be an immeasurable help, Petrehn said. Oftentimes all it takes is getting that first domino to fall, and the benefits are self-evident. A 20-minute walk in the morning can lead to healthier, more alert kids in the classroom.

“The kids, when they have had this morning activity, they arrive at school more ready to learn and ready to behave better,” he said.

Bridging the Gap has several local appearances planned for this year, including a booth at Thursday’s Back to School Night/Community Fair at Broadmoor Elementary, where they will be attempting to get students and parents to sign up for the program.

The importance of the initiative’s structural component can’t be understated, Petrehn noted, including the psychological benefits of seeing new crosswalks and improved sidewalks and walking paths in place. City Engineer Rita Cassida said the city planned to have construction completed by the end of the year — by which point Petrehn expected a significant increase in the number of walkers and bikers each day.

Cassida remembered her own childhood, which included a daily walk to school. Though her own family now lives too far from the schools to make it practical, Cassida has volunteered to start a “Wildcat Walking Wednesdays” group — similar to what Bowes and Rockville Elementary started last year — which would depart from the city’s new shelter house on Metcalf Road.

“It would help the parents out, so they can get out of the school congestion,” Cassida said. “I just need to do a test walk, to see how long it takes to walk through there.”

For more information on Bridging the Gap and their work with the Safe Routes to School program, visit www.bridgingthegap.org.

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