Do you know who your child’s Safe Routes to School coordinator is?

curious to know how the Milwaukie effort is proceeding…

http://bikeportland.org/2015/03/30/milwaukie-tigard-call-regional-safe-routes-school-funding-136301

is there a follow-up for that one?

Funny story regarding the Beaverton School District:

A couple of years ago they determined that it was now safe for kids to walk across Bethany BLVD to get to Oak Hills Elementary, so they published a new walking route and cut buses for ~300 kids. This new route featured a path through the Oak Hills HOA’s private property, and a path on the school’s property that is owned by the district . As more kids started walking on this path, it was quickly realized that this path was substandard, with large portions of the path underwater, and the adjacent grass completely fouled up with deep mud.

We brought this issue to the HOA and to the school district, and asked for them to make repairs. We got a rough estimate for the path improvement at around $25K, if I remember right. That would have been suitable for the HOA, and the cost of the repairs would have been shared with the district. However, the district decided that instead of splitting the cost of the path, they would change the published walking route to go another way, and bring back buses for the kids who are the furthest away (~30 kids). So instead of improving walking conditions for 300 kids at a one-time cost of $15K, they decided to add a bus for 30 kids at a cost of….$35K a year forever? More?

We really do need Safe Routes To School. The school districts are doing nothing on their own to improve walking conditions or to encourage kids to walk to school without SRTS prodding.

ODOT (in spite of PBOT’s efforts) has no interest in SR2S in the Wilson Cluster as evidenced by their failure to provide safe walking/biking facilities along Barbur Blvd (aka, the backbone of SW Portland travel). The Jackson MS feeder schools in particular (Capitol Hill & Markham) suffer tremendously as a result. At Capitol Hill with help from Janice, Greg Raisman and our Principal Joy Williams we have taken some baby steps building covered bike shelters (that barely get used after 2 years), removing parking along Spring Garden for bus parking (took a year) to provide a safer environment for kids walking and to stop busses from winding through sidewalkless streets close to the school where kids can now more safely walk and bike.

Most importantly at CH we reinstated the Street Trust’s (formerly BTA) one-week bike safety education program (for 5th graders). There is a noticeable difference with my 5th grade son and his friends around the idea of riding their bikes (safely) around the neighborhood. Unfortunately, their enthusiasm will come to a halt when they reach Jackson MS, where it is almost no safe route exists. PBOT could make some low-cost changes by adding bike lanes along SW 35th Ave, but evidently on-street parking for neighbors and parents takes priority in spite of the fact the school has a pretty big parking lot on the school grounds.

Along Vermont, next to Wilson HS, the wide bike lanes are nice but get parked in on school days and during the Hillsdale Farmers Market on Sundays. What can we do better to get the city to enforce parking rules for bike lanes? I see the same problem along SW Broadway southbound near PSU.