On Wednesday, concerned parents and citizens met at Pinecrest Elementary school to discuss the Safe Routes to Schools program. Sue Kelly of the City of Sebastopol shared her insights into traffic planning in Sebastopol. Tina Panza, the Safe Route program manager, led a discussion of how the task force could be active in achieving the programs' goals
The immediate focus areas of the task force:
- Route Planning – creating a map of suggested “SRTS” routes for each school, based on existing conditions, distributing this map to the city and community, and providing encouragement for families to utilize these routes to/from school. Such a map will be most helpful to the city, to enable them to focus on prioritizing improvements along designated routes. We have formed a SRTS “Route Planning Committee”, and plan to meet again in January, separately from the Task Force. If you are interested in working on this aspect of SRTS, please email me so we can include you on that distribution list.
- School Pool System – Creating a District (or individual school) “school pool” directory for Fall 2009 that enables families to connect with each other for walking, biking, carpooling, and anything else they want to connect about. In addition to the directory, the Task force would like to determine additional ways for families to connect with each other for the purpose of pooling.
- Spring Encouragement/Education Events – In addition to the Walk/Roll Wednesday program, we have ideas for Spring Encouragement/Education events that will require additional planning/manpower.
