Safe Routes to Schools

Winter 2002 Newsletter

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Mill Valley Receives Safe Routes to Schools Grant

On November 27, 2001, Governor Davis directed $24 million in federal funds for projects throughout the State that are aimed at protecting the safety of children as they make their way to and from school. The City of Mill Valley, which applied for Safe Routes to Schools funding, will receive about $343,000 for four important projects:

A new multi-use path along Camino Alto between the Mill Valley Middle School and the newly constructed Community Center. At present, there is a narrow substandard path consisting of deteriorated asphalt that is unfriendly to pedestrians, bicyclists, disabled persons, and users from the Redwoods Retirement Community.
An asphalt connection, with wheelchair accessibility, between the County multi-use pathway (Bay Trail) and Edna Maguire School. This project will enable Edna Maguire students, traveling to and from school via walking or bicycling, to use the Bay Trail to access the school rather than along busy Lomita Avenue.
Modification of the wheelchair ramp at the northwest corner of the East Blithedale/Lomita Avenue intersection. This intersection has the highest pedestrian and bicycle use in all of Marin County, due to the proximity of local schools and the Bay Trail. The improvement is needed to discourage motorists from driving on the ramp.
Three pairs of banner poles, which will act as gateways to school facilities for a coordinated educational program between the City, the schools and the Safe Routes to Schools program. A plan is in place to erect one set of poles along Lomita Avenue.

All four projects were identified through a cooperative effort between the City, the Mill Valley School District, each school, the PTA, and the Mill Valley Safe Routes to School program.

In addition, a number of volunteers, including Wayne Bush (City Engineer), Dick Swanson (Councilmember), Janice Johnson Kuhl (Mill Valley Safe Routes to Schools), and David Parisi (Safe Routes to Schools Transportation Engineer) and the Marin Safe Routes to Schools program prepared the winning application. The application included detailed information from the City of Mill Valley's recently completed and popular Transportation Study, as well as with substantiating school survey data. It was also boosted with letters of support from numerous entities and individuals, including the Mill Valley School District, Marin Horizon School, several school PTAs, Safe Routes to Schools committee members, the Mill Valley Police Department, and the Redwoods Retirement Community.

Frequent Rider Miles Prizes

Come spring, the rains diminish, flowers come out and kids start walking and biking to school more. To encourage children to take advantage of the good weather, Safe Routes to Schools will be running its second annual Frequent Rider Miles contest. Children will be asked to keep a tally card of the number of times they walk or bike to school. When they get 16 points, they turn in their card for a reward and the chance to be in the end-of-the-year raffle.

SR2S is starting to line up the prizes for this year's contest. Every school will get a Diggler to give to the lucky prizewinner. A Diggler is where board meets bike - a bicycle with a skateboard instead of pedals, but with many of the advantages of a bike, including handlebars, large wheels and brakes. Elementary schools will get a Dirt-Dawg, a safer, stronger alternative to the scooter. The older students in the middle school will be awarded a CementMixxer, part BMX and part skateboard. Diggler is located in Petaluma. For more information, check their website at: www.diggler.com.

Other donations are accumulating in our storeroom. Special THANKS go to:

The Recyclery of San Rafael, for assorted kids gloves and apparel
Ourey Grips, for two dozen kids' colorful handlebar grips
Caisar's Cyclery of Marin in San Anselmo, for three scooters
Wilson Bicycle Sales Bike, for baskets, blinkies, grips, and other assortments
Mirryccle Corporation, for three dozen colorful bells for bikes

We will continue to accumulate prizes for the spring. There will be improvements to this year's contest, with more emphasis on rewarding those who turn in multiple cards. We will also be asking for a parent's signature on each card. Each school will determine its own distribution process for cards and prizes. The best reward will go to everyone for having a cleaner, healthier environment.

The Marin Decal Program Promotes Safety

By Malcolm Foster

The Marin "Share The Road" Program and the Marin "Safe Routes To Schools" Program have joined forces and will be launching a joint project in January 2002. The project is a community awareness program aimed at permanently placing the static-cling decal shown above on every storefront in Marin.

The distribution effort will be known at the Marin Decal Distribution Program. Corry Wagner of Trips for Kids will be providing Program Manager services to the project and the project will have at least four distribution centers where volunteers can sign up to help with the distribution effort. Safe Routes to Schools Team Leaders will also have decals for distribution.

As an incentive to volunteer, the Marin "Share The Road" Program has received special permission from the Marin County District Attorney to award each volunteer who distributes 10 decals with a personal copy of the Lance Armstrong "Share The Road" poster. These posters are truly stunning and they cannot be purchased or sold, only earned.

The Marin County Board of Supervisors has passed a resolution in support of this program and they are urging all Marin businesses to participate by displaying the decal on their storefront. This project is a great opportunity for Marin students, parents, teachers, MCBC members and the general public to get involved in raising the road safety awareness of all Marin residents.

As stated in the resolution passed by the Board of Supervisors: the decals will serve "as a constant reminder for all Marin residents to share the road and exercise safety and caution, especially around children and their schools".

International Walk to School Day 2001

Students from twenty-eight Marin County Schools joined millions of students and adults from around the world to celebrate the joys of walking and biking on International Walk to School Day, October 2, 2001. Here are some of the highlights:

In Kentfield, dozens of children, grouped together in walking 'schools buses' and 'bike trains', converged at the school from both Sir Francis Drake and McAllister Ave. Assemblyman Joe Nation walked to school with his daughter, Kristen, from their home on Wolf Grade, between San Rafael and Greenbrae. They stopped off at Bacich School to say hi to the kids to Kent Middle School . Supervisor Hal Brown hopped on a bike and joined a bike train to Brookside Schools at the gateway to Sleepy Hollow. Supervisor John Kress walked with students at Mary Silviera School in San Rafael. Marin Community Foundation grant coordinator, Sallyanne Wilson, accompanied the children to Neil Cummins School in Corte Madera. St. Patrick's private school in Larkspur reported that 110 of their 262 students participated. which then made them eligible for the raffle of three pairs of shoes donated by VANS. In Bolinas, principal Larry Enos led a grand procession from Horseshoe Hill to school. Greg de Nevers guided a group of parents, staff and students on a delightful two mile hike from Volunteer Canyon to the Stinson Campus. Some Stinson students even biked through Seadrift, kayaked across Bolinas Lagoon, then walked from Bolinas to school. Ross School decorated it's greeting table international unity with flags from all over the world and international treats. Lagunitas Schools celebrated for peace and unity and held a rally for the Middle School students to speak out about their feelings. In Mill Valley, Marin Horizon's Walk to School had over 75 students and their families walking from Whole Foods plus an equal number of bicyclists. Mo Noyer's fourth grade class at Wade Thomas School in San Anselmo organized the event and had Detective Payette, from the San Anselmo Police Department, walk with them and then spent an hour in the class talking with the students.

Other schools that participated were Manor and St. Rita's Schools in Fairfax; Edna Maguire, Tam Valley, Mill Valley Middle School and Old Mill School in Mill Valley; Vallecito and Sun Valley Schools in San Rafael; Hall Middle School in Larkspur; Marin Montessori in Corte Madera; Bel Aire, Reed, Del Mar, and St. Hilary's in Tiburon; and Drake High School in San Anselmo.

Twenty countries also held events, including hundreds of cities from every state in the U.S. Check out the international web site at www.iwalktoschool.org.

Assemblyman Joe Nation Promotes Safe Routes to Schools

Assemblyman Joe Nation and his daughter Kristen joined hundreds of Marin children in walking to school on October 2. 'It was great!' exclaimed the Assemblyman, 'I wish we could do it more often. We're healthier for it, the air is cleaner and I was able to reconnect with Kristin. We try to get out and walk with our kids on a regular basis even if its just to walk down the street or to walk the dogs. When you're walking you can put everything else behind you. It's very hard to have quality time with your kids in the car -there are too many distractions. Nation walked to school all the way through High School. 'I saved money from not buying a car and used that money to go to college. '

Nation hopes that these events will encourage some people to do it more often. 'Walk to School Day energizes the kids as much as the parents; probably more than the parents. We are so used to going everywhere by car that it's almost a natural response or reflex at this point. We get in the car to drive half a mile to the drug store, so we assume we have to drive half a mile to school We need to ensure that there are options to the car. And, that we fund those options adequately. We need to ensure that there is a safe route to school for kids, that it is safe to walk from your house to drug store or ride your bike to the ferry landing. We need to permit bikes on the Richmond Bridge. We also need to provide good transit opportunities.

Nation was a co-sponsor of SB10, which passed the legislature last year and was signed into law by Governor Davis on October 9, 2001. SB10 extends a program of providing $25 million in grants a year to schools throughout California for safety improvements. We must try to dedicate a certain percentage of the transportation budget to bicycle and pedestrian facilities. One percent of transportation funds in Colorado goes to bikes. That might not seem like much, but 1% can fund a lot of improvements.

Fairfax Walk and Bike America Winners

By Dierdra Rogers

Laura Honda's third grade and Rebecca Link's second/third grade won the Golden and Silver Sneakers respectively in the Walk and Bike America contest that ended Wed., Dec. 5, 2001 at Manor School in Fairfax.

Five classrooms participated in the seven-week contest that rewarded pollution-free travel to and from school. Students added together the collective miles to and from school that they walked, biked or carpooled. Each class chose a goal in the Western United States, and their collective miles were then plotted weekly on maps. Honda's class beat their goal of traveling to Disneyland, Sequoia National Park and then back to Fairfax for a total of 1,086 miles, earning the Golden Sneaker. Link's class beat their goal of 800 miles by twenty miles and traveled to Disneyland and the Grand Canyon. They received the Silver Sneaker award. Antonia Sousa's 4th/5th grade class traveled 553 to Las Vegas on their way to completing their goal of a tour of national parks, including Yosemite, Death Valley, Zion, Grand Canyon and Arches. Mary Accord's 4th grade traveled 417 of the 570 miles they needed to complete the length of California. Ann Brown's 3rd grade traveled 186 of the 250 miles toward their Lake Tahoe goal. All students received coupons for ice cream, compliments of the PTA.

Larkspur Schools Launch Program

By Sharon Faccinto

The Larkspur Schoolshad a busy first semester. At Hall Middle School, the first Bike/Walk to School Day was enthusiastically carried out with success, and the subsequent car counts, parent surveys and student surveys done there gave us a much clearer picture of commute patterns to Hall. Leslie Alden-Crowe, Jeannie Perry, Mary Connolly and Linda Malatesta arekeeping things moving along at Hall, and we expect to see a lot more walkers/ bikers come spring!

At Neil Cummins Elementary, nearly 200 students signed in with volunteers as having biked, walked, ridden a scooter or carpooled each Wednesday. Counting each of their trips as one mile (for the sake of simplicity) in the Race Across America, we advanced about halfway across the U.S. Our collective progress was updated weekly on a big map posted in the front of the school as well as on our website, http://www.LarkspurSchools.org. We'll continue to plot our progress towards New York in Spring, thanks to Monica Oldmen Sherman, Michelle Sorenson, Maryjane Dunstan,Betsy Chatton and Mark Miller.

The fabulous Golden Sneaker Award, crafted by volunteer Julie Glavin, was awarded to the fourth grade studentsof Mrs. O'Brien's & Mrs. Hurwick's class for having the highest level of participation of any class at NC.

Larkspur's Infrastructure Task Force is moving forward, initiating their first informal meetings in November and December. A working group was established which includes the town Mayor, Director of Parks and Recreation, and the Director, supervisor and engineer from Public Works, and representative from the Marin County Bicycle Coalition. Corte Madera's is still in the planning stages, butlooks promising.

Edna Maguire School Chooses Name and Heads for Canada

Edna Maguire's Safe Routes to Schools program has its own name now: Local Motion. The Edna Maguire Team held a contest in the fall inviting students to find a special name for their program. Forty-one entries were submitted covering the themes of pollution, safety, health and active living. Judges had a hard time deciding among such clever entries as: Pollution free kids, Safe ways to Scamper, the Healthy Legs Committee, Roads are for using, not abusing, and How to stay a lean mean fighting machine. Second grader Jeremy Tsyporin won the winning entry with Local Motion. All the children were awarded prizes for their efforts.

Now Local Motion is taking a road trip. Partnering with the Maurice Cody School in Toronto, Ontario, Canada, the children will be meeting each other as they keep track of the number of miles they walked, biked, scootered or carpooled to school. Maurice Cody is a K-6 grade school with 400 students who have weekly 'Walking Wednesdays'. As the students track their kilometers school-wide and travel south, the students at Edna Maguire will track their miles school-wide and travel north to meet them. Counting the bike, walk, or carpool trips they make they will track their progress on a map posted in the office. Students will have a chance to make a pen pal, learn about mapping skills and North American geography, and participate in a variety of activities aimed at learning more about their neighbors to the north.

The Edna Maguire Team has also created a neighborhood directory to facilitate the creation of school pools for parents to partner up in driving, walking or biking their children to school. They've created suggested carpooling routes and help facilitate easing the drop-off and pick-up through parent volunteers.

Vallecito Teacher Discovers the Joys of Biking

By Wendi Kallins

Meredith Hollifield had just finished her first Triathlon last summer when she began the school year teaching 2nd graders at Vallecito School. She saw International Walk to School Day as a good opportunity to get in a good workout while setting an example for her students.

Meredith does not consider herself an athlete. She drove her self down to Marinwood from her home in Novato and biked to school from there. But the ride back to her car at the end of the day was so easy, that she decided to bike all the way home. That's when she got the idea to start doing that two or three times a week. She brings her bike with her to school and then rides home and carpools in the next day. 'It actually is saving me time, because before I would drive home, change, get on my bike and go for a ride. Now my ride home is my workout for the day.'

Negotiating the ride from Terra Linda to Novato includes two fairly steep hills: one between Marinwood and Novato and another one to get to her house. 'At first the hills were really hard,' she said. 'But it got easier very quickly. It's a great feeling of accomplishment to hit the peak of the hill and know that you made it.'

Meredith hasn't tried biking to school because she doesn't want to start the day all sweaty. When discussing the idea of leaving a change of clothes at school and cleaning up in the gym locker rooms, her face lit up. She agreed that it might even be quicker to bike to work than drive, considering the horrendous traffic between Novato and San Rafael.

She has been talking with her class about the joys of walking and biking. They also discuss health, exercise and pollution. 'They really get it!' she exclaims. She hopes to arrange to meet with her kids on the next Vallecito Walk to School Day so they can all walk together.

While the rain has somewhat cramped Meredith's ability to bike from school, it hasn't dampened her enthusiasm. She intends to continue biking as much as she can and is already planning her next Triathlon. Meredith thinks Safe Routes to Schools is a great program. 'Walk and Bike to School Day is a great way to get people to try it once. I tried it and it was really fun.'

Marin Horizon Fosters Carpooling

Private schools offer a unique challenge for Safe Routes to Schools since so many of their students are arriving from all over the county and even from San Francisco. Marin Horizon, one of the original pilot schools in the program, has gone the extra mile to foster a culture that insists on utilizing alternative means of getting to school.

Marin Horizon School occupies the old Homestead Valley School in Mill Valley. Like many private schools it is required to develop a traffic control plan as part of its use permit to operate in the residential community. As a school that fosters environmental awareness in its pupils, Marin Horizon took these requirements seriously and immediately began developing a traffic control program for the school.

They have a prescribed traffic flow pattern with a team of volunteer traffic monitors to assist in creating an efficient and fluid traffic flow during drop-off and pick-up times. They also have a staggered schedule of dismissal times to spread the flow more evenly.

Marin Horizon School participated in the monthly Walk and Bike to School Days sponsored by the Mill Valley SR2S program. Whole Foods Market, at the foot of Evergreen, allows them to use its parking lot as a staging area where people can park and walk the rest of the way up to the campus.

Carpooling is perhaps the most effective means of reducing traffic for private schools. At the beginning of the school year Marin Horizon sponsored a Carpool Coffee. At that time carpool lists were distributed and Head of School, Roz Hamar, spoke to the parents about the absolute importance of increasing carpooling and the use of alternative efforts. Each family was sent a list of neighbors in their zip code, using the additional four identifying digital zip code to fine tune neighborhood identification. Some parents become carpool coordinators to contact their neighbors and develop carpools. The packet included a Traffic Reduction Form that explicitly asked parents to state how they will reduce traffic around the school either through carpooling, biking or walking.

In an end of the year assessment, Marin Horizon found that they went from 59.6% to 94% of their enrollment participating in some form of carpool or other alternative transportation. The largest increase came from children walking and biking, going from 6 to 87 children.

Safe Routes to Schools Goes National

By Debbie Hubsmith

The Safe Routes to Schools grassroots movement has reached the National level, and the League of American Bicyclists (LAB) has taken the reins to guide the process for creating a National agenda.

LAB is now hosting regular conference calls with Safe Routes to Schools leaders throughout the United States to facilitate the sharing of information and to develop a national platform and strategy for catalyzing the spread of Safe Routes to Schools to every community in the United States.

The LAB 'Working Group' has already agreed that a successful National Safe Routes to Schools program must include funding for educational program (like the Marin Safe Routes to Schools program) and capital grants (like the Caltrans Safe Routes to Schools program)

The Safe Routes to Schools National Working Group includes three Task Forces:

The Federal Funding Task Force: This Committee is examining and will make recommendations on federal funding strategies for Safe Routes to Schools.

The Program Model Task Force: This Committee is responsible for evaluating the various program models at the state and local levels and for recommending how funds can be best used.

The Data Collection Task Force: This Committee, which will include government agencies such as the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration, will begin to evaluate and compare the successes of various Safe Routes to Schools programs.

On February 5, 2002, Congressman James Oberstar will be convening a special Safe Routes to Schools presentation for Congressional delegates, State Bicycle and Pedestrian Coordinators, and Agency leaders. The League of American Bicyclists, which is working with Congressman Oberstar's office on this event, will present recommendations from the Safe Routes to Schools Working Group at the meeting. Marin County Bicycle Coalition's Executive Director, Debbie Hubsmith, has also been invited to Washington to make a presentation at this important meeting.

In 2003, Congress plans to reauthorize the Transportation Equity Act for the 21st Century. This transportation expenditure bill will include funds for all transportation projects for the following six years. The LAB Working Group aims to make Safe Routes to Schools a featured proposal for this important funding package.

Training Offered for Police Officers

Safe Routes to Schools offered a special training for police officers on teaching children about bicycle and pedestrian safety. The training took place on January 24th and was co-sponsored by the Marin County Sheriff's Department and the San Rafael Police Department. Officers from San Rafael, Twin Cities, Mill Valley, Fairfax, San Anselmo, Ross, Novato, Tiburon and the Sheriff's department participated.

We were delighted to have the gratis services of Bruce Mackey, State Education Officer for Bicycle and Pedestrian Safety from the State of Nevada, as our instructor. Mr. Mackey has trained over two hundred instructors in locations throughout Nevada and is a regular columnist on bicycle and pedestrian safety issues. Mr. Mackey is responsible for a statewide education program promoting bicycle and pedestrian safety for the State of Nevada, training educators, law enforcement officers and community leaders. Before he came to Nevada Mr. Mackey was an Alternative Transportation Specialist for the State of Florida and worked with Walkability Guru Dan Burden

This training provided community police with the tools and lesson plans to teach children the basic skills needed to safely navigate roads on foot or wheels. Officers learned how to engage the children and teach them the proper way to cross streets and ride along with traffic, with an emphasis on safety equipment. Bicycle Rodeo information was also provided to increase the participation of local law enforcement in Safe Routes to Schools rodeos. Safe Routes instructor Chris Davis and DARE sheriff deputy Janet Hayes also made presentations.

International Bike Conference Features Safe Routes to Schools

By Chris Davis

Velo-city is an international conference on bicycle advocacy involving 500 delegates from 42 countries. Marin Safe Routes to Schools was honored to be one of 37 presentations as part of the Children and Mobility portion of the conference.

There were many exciting opportunities for cross-cultural discussions. Ms. Viera Stupakova, a teacher from Kostitras, Slovakia, arranged a conference call with some of her students, allowing us to ask them questions about their program and their attitudes about cycling. These teenage girls love to ride their bikes, they value the freedom it affords them and they recognize the environmental and health benefits. They are actually appalled by the idea of being driven around by their parents.

Mrs. A. Gaviani, a classroom teacher who represented the Federazione Italiana Amici della Bicicletta, Italy, introduced us to 'Bimbimbici', a child-centered national cycling event that involved 40 major cities this year. The theme of Bimbimbici 2001 was 'Children Cycling to School'.

Denmark has had Safe Routes to School for twenty years. Traffic safety education is integrated throughout their curriculum from pre-school on, and in the city of Odense 80-90 percent of the population bikes to work. The SR2S program in the United Kingdom, which was started by Sustrans, a private non-profit, has in just five years, been embraced by the British and Scottish Parlaiments; they are creating and funding positions for SR2S Coordinators in local governments throughout the UK. In Norway, the children's cycle training facility looks more like Disneyland than traffic school.

The most exciting possibility for exchange is between the young people we all work with. As educators we agreed that encouraging our students to communicate with one another would broaden their perspectives and contribute to the global understanding we need to promote now more than ever. Visit www.youngtransnet.org.uk to experience how children are working for changes in the transportation policy in their own country and facilitating dialogue among young people from around the world.

Visit the Safe Routes to Schools New Web Site

http://www.saferoutestoschools.org

We have redesigned our web site to provide more tools and resources for interested schools. Our toolkit is now available on the web site as a PDF file. You can also scan through the toolkit via links through the web, for ease of access to specific information.

Each school will be given an introductory page that can then link to the school's web page if they have one. Our newsletters will also be available on-line. You can download forms and fact sheets and connect with other programs through our resources and links section

Toolkit to go National

The Marin Safe Routes to Schools toolkit is about to go national through a cooperative agreement with the California Department of Health Services/UCSF and the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration. California's Safe Routes to Schools program operated through the Department of Health Services will be designing the new toolkit and printing will be provided by NHTSA. The new toolkit has been revised based on a peer review from other programs throughout the country and the new design promises to be user-friendlier.

Safety Improvements Move Forward

More and more schools will be experiencing safer streets as the mapping process for Safe Routes to Schools moves forward. Volunteers in Fairfax, Sleepy Hollow, Kentfield, Larkspur, Corte Madera, Mill Valley and San Rafael are now involved in creating a Safe Routes to Schools Improvement Plan for their community. We are also in the beginning stages of launching a SR2S program in Novato.

Fairfax Safe Routes to Schools is proposing major improvements along Sir Francis Drake to increase the safety of children crossing the busy inter-county roadway and attempt to slow the traffic down. An open house will be held on March 2 from 11 a.m. to 1 p.m. at the Women's Building to get feedback and further refine the proposals. Proposals include adding a crosswalk at Manor Circle and Sir Francis Drake, changing the pedestrian activated signal at St. Rita's to a controlled signal light, improve bike lanes, crosswalks and sidewalks on the main routes in town so they are more visible to drivers, and enforce speed limits on roadways used for school routes, particularly Sir Francis Drake.

Brookside Safe Routes to Schools held a meeting on January 16, to launch it's mapping process. The meeting was well attended by about 40 parents and neighbors of the two campuses in Sleepy Hollow. The group discussed speeding on Butterfield Rd., and parking in the bike lanes, especially construction equipment. They also mulled the circulation at upper campus where cars, walkers and bikers must all share one narrow dead-end road to reach the school. The group generated a list of issues and distributed check lists and maps for participants to provide further input. These maps will be sent home with the students as well. Another meeting will be set for February or March to further refine the list and set priorities. The next meeting is February 28 at 7 p.m. at the upper campus library.

A joint meeting of the Kent Middle School and Bacich PTA drew over 30 concerned parents, children and citizens to a meeting on February 6. The meeting included an extensive slide presentation by SR2S transportation that generated an animated discussion on the issues around McAllister, and especially along Sir Francis Drake. The Kentfield Teams have already distributed maps and check lists and will be gathering their information to create a prioritized list of issues for the transportation consultants to explore in more depth. Both Kentfield and Brookside will then have field trips with the consultants to begin formulating improvement recommendations.

Larkspur's Infrastructure Task Force initiated their first informal meetings in November and December. A working group was established which includes the town Mayor, director of Parks and Recreation, and the director, supervisor and engineer from Public Works. Based on their requests, public works has moved bike path signs down to a level visible by people on foot or on bikes. They have trimmed the hedges that were obstructing the view and creating hazards. The town is going ahead with plans to pave the unpaved section of the Larkspur Bike Path that goes from the central path to the Corte Madera Line near the High Canal Bridge, a vital linkage for kids coming traveling between the two towns. In addition, they will be installing a very visible warning sign in the center of W. Baltimore and Magnolia crosswalk which will be bright and highly visible. Corte Madera's Traffic Safety Committee will be hearing from Safe Routes to Schools in April.

The Mill Valley routes committee continues to meet on the last Thursday of every month to refine it's Safe Routes Improvement Plan. A project list has been created and refined. Victoria Talkington (from the Mill Valley Planning Commission) and the Mill Valley Department of Parks and Recreation were successful in their bid for a California Department of Transportation grant for their Step-by-Step program. This program will create uniform signage for all public pedestrian steps, paths and lanes in Mill Valley and will provide fun and safe alternatives for our student routes to school. Mill Valley's Team is still celebrating the award of $350,000 for connectors between the bike path and schools and the community center. They are also paying close attention to the Miller Avenue Corridor plan and the Mill Valley Shuttle Committee.

In San Rafael, Marinwood residents are getting ready to launch their own Safe Routes to Schools program with a meeting in March. Miller Creek parent Patrick Seidler and Mary Silviera parents Damon and Dawn Connelly are organizing a community meeting to introduce the program and recruit team leaders from each school. Meanwhile, Vallecito School, also in the Dixie School District is enjoying the success of it's second year in the program and has solicited input from parents through the Safe Routes Check Lists. While Vallecito has mostly good sidewalks, speeding cars and the lack of controlled intersections plague students walking and biking to school. A community meeting presenting the results of student and parent surveys will take place on Thursday, April 18 at 7 p.m.

In West Marin, Woodacre residents were successful in getting Public Works to study stop signs for some key intersections used by children walking and biking to the bus or to school. GO GERONIMO and the San Geronimo Valley Planning Group will also explore the issue of speeding cars on Sir Francis Drake in front of the school and through Forest Knolls and Lagunitas and along San Geronimo Valley Drive. They will meet with the SR2S transportation consultants on March 20 at 8 a.m. in front of the school. Meanwhile, Bolinas SR2S advocates continue to try to convince their fellow townspeople to support a funded bike lane that would run from the town to the school.

If you would like to get involved in Safe Routes to Schools activities in your community, contact Wendi Kallins at 488-4101.