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Walkability

November 9, 2009

Program aim: Get students to walk

Heights-Murray School wins grant to encourage more kids to travel to class on foot.

By Mark Guydish mguydish@timesleader.com
Education Reporter
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WILKES-BARRE – In the era of disappearing neighborhood schools and district consolidation, walking to class may seem more like Norman Rockwell nostalgia than New Millennium reality.

In the case of Heights-Murray Elementary in Wilkes-Barre – a school nearly surrounded by some of the city’s busiest streets -- it can sound like a pipe dream. Yet more than half the students walk to the building each day, and a new $5,000 grant is intended to increase that number.

Heights-Murray was the only local school, and one of only 30 statewide, to win the competitive grant, a joint program run by the Safe Routes to School Academy based at Penn State/Hershey Children’s Hospital, the state and federal departments of transportation, and the Federal Highway Safety administration.

The goal is to encourage students to walk or bike to school, and the money can be spent on five broad categories, according to a press release: “Education, Encouragement, Enforcement, Evaluation, and Engineering” related to walking and biking to school.

“We will be meeting to discuss how to spend the money, probably early (this) week,” District Safety Coordinator Jodi Dunn said.

Even though Heights-Murray is bracketed by two prime routes into downtown Wilkes-Barre -- Northampton Street to the south and Coal Street to the north -- about 487 of the roughly 700 students walk to school. “We are still basically a neighborhood school,” Dunn said.

The school will also get a free “walkability audit” with a team of engineers and experts coming to town to study walking routes and make recommendations.

Dunn said the district is trying to get the team to visit before the expansion and reconfiguring of Coal Street, because plans call for widening it to as much as five lanes.

“We have had a lot of problems at Coal and Sherman streets,” Dunn said of the key intersection just north of the school, adding that the district hopes to have some input into the new design to provide added safety for students.

While the district has yet to formalize plans for the grant, the press release notes past winners have used the money to participate in International Walk to School Day, host school assemblies on pedestrian and/or bicycle safety, create a safety patrol program, and implement “drop and walk” and “Walking School Bus” programs.

A walking school bus is a group of children walking together with one or more adults.

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