Want to make the neighborhood safer for kids? The city is willing to help:
In October, during International Walk to School month, the Seattle Department of Transportation (SDOT) is accepting applications for mini-grants of up to $1,000 to fund projects that educate students about pedestrian and bicycle safety, and encourage walking and biking to school. Private and public schools, PTAs and other school-related nonprofit groups may apply. The activities must support the overall goal of educating about safety and encouraging more walking and bicycling to school.
Mini-grants have helped schools start student safety patrols, attentive-driving programs, anti-idling campaigns, as well as bike safety education programs. Last year, Loyal Heights Elementary created an eight-week urban cycling club to teach fourth and fifth grade students bike safety and practice bicycling skills on neighborhood streets. McDonald Elementary School purchased safety supplies, including safety vests and flags, for their walking school buses. Mercer Middle School brought an Undriver Licensing Station to school for students who choose to walk and bike to school.
In previous years, schools have used their mini-grant to purchase safety patrol equipment and start a new student safety patrol program, to make traffic circulation changes on school property that increased safety for students walking and biking to school, and to start a peer-education bicycle safety program. Mini-grant funds can even support creative classroom activities that explore the benefits of walking and biking to school. Ballard High School students used a mini- grant to produce a documentary film about the Seattle Bicycle Music Festival.
The city’s web site has more information on how to apply for a Mini Grant
i’m sure i’ll be booed, but what ever happened to mom and dad teaching you this stuff? “look both ways before you cross the street” and hand signals for bike riding, etc.
thousands of dollars in grants is really necessary?
Here, here.
In 2010, drivers in Seattle struck 529 pedestrians. Five [pedestrians] were killed and 27 more were seriously injured.
Presumably the drivers had passed driver’s instructions and a licensing test. So–what ever happened to “Yield to pedestrians” “Slow down in a School zone” “don’t hit people with your car”?
fruitbat, if you are directing that at me; of course people shouldn’t drive into other people. this article isn’t about that. if you re-read it, you’ll see that its a grant to teach kids how to cross the street safely. and again, that should be Mommy and Daddy’s job, not from a random grant that. would be a waste of $.
The grants are actually terrific and necessary. They are to be used for building programs at schools that encourage more families to walk and bike to school. These programs benefit everyone: kids getting more exercise, fewer cars on the road contributing to the traffic, fewer idling cars in front of your house (if you live on the same block as a school, you know what I mean) polluting the air that you breathe. Schools have used the grants to start walking school bus programs, to offer urban biking classes to families so more people learn how to safely bike where there are cars, to buy bests and flags for student safety patrols at their campuses (which is important when the school district does not fund crossing guards), and lots more.
Getting parents and kids to walk or bike to school takes planning and education in an era where only 13% of children walk to bike to school. It’s also difficult when the school that you live closest to is not your reference school. Or when your school starts at 9:20 but you have to be at work at 9. Or when you have children at two different schools that start at almost the same time. Walking school buses and other programs can make it possible for more people to participate.
Also, it’s not the 50s, so we can’t pretend that thinks are as simple as mom and dad teaching you to look both ways. It’s not generally considered responsible parenting to let your kindergartener walk to school alone, especially if they have to cross 40th street in a place where cars speed, drivers text and there are no stoplights. The schools generally will not permit kindergarteners to wander off at the end of the day. They must be released to the care of a guardian. So, how can we encourage more parents to walk to pick up? Can we successfully change a school’s culture so that more people are walking and biking? SDOT has been offering these grants for several years and they have been very effective and getting programs up and running at schools.
My sister in law was hit by a car and seriously injured. She was crossing against the light. A friend of mine was hit by a car and injured when she stepped out from between two parked cars on a rainy day. She was shocked when the police gave her a ticket for causing the accident. Cars are not always the villains.
its not about car vs peds/bikes.
“the Seattle Department of Transportation (SDOT) is accepting applications for mini-grants of up to $1,000 to fund projects that educate students about pedestrian and bicycle safety, and encourage walking and biking to school”
for me its, is this really a good way to spend money in this city? again, mom and dad should be more than capable of teaching a kid how to cross the street safely.
Flimflam, read what Kimberly says and re-read the article. Actually, the grants are about encouraging walking or biking to school, with safety training only one component.
As for mom and dad’s teaching being sufficient, I recall back in the antediluvian days when I was in elementary school (40-some years ago), we saw educational films about bike safety and, yes, street-crossing safety. Repeating lessons in different context never hurts. And yeah, somebody had to pay for those films.
Come to think of it, there were public service ads on the TV, too.
Sing along now: “Don’t cross the street in the middle, in the middle, in the middle of the block”
I thank Wallyhood for posting information about these grants. I’ve been working (office substitute) at JSIS off and on for several months and often monitor the Safety Patrol, 4th and 5th graders who guide pedestrians across three marked crosswalks near NE 42nd and 4th Ave NE. I am stunned at the behavior of drivers in cars around these elementary school children with day-glo orange or yellow helmets and vests and flags and traffic cones who are there to help others cross the street safely. Give me a radar gun to see how many of these drivers are obeying the 20 mph limit. Give me brochures for reading lessons (suggested by a school bus driver) for those drivers who park in the bus loading zone beneath the “BUS ZONE NO PARKING 2-4 PM” while the buses are trying to park. I’ll bring my own tape measure to show drivers how far 30 feet from a crosswalk is. The Safety Patrol kids can’t figure out what is wrong with these adults. The school bus driver calls them the “special people,” those who feel the rules don’t apply to them. And yes, the people with the parking issues are picking up their own children and grandchildren.
OK, I’m not really going to request a radar gun or brochures with a grant, but I am thinking about increased signage and more traffic cones.