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Chicago targets school travel hazards
By Margo O'Hara
A task force of City
of Chicago agencies is hoping a grant will help transform the
way many of the city's children travel to school.
The Safe Routes Task Force, comprised of representatives from the
Chicago Police Department, the Chicago Department of Transportation
and Chicago Public Schools, identified 20 schools in neighborhoods
with high crash rates and high crime activity.
"These kids face all of these other issues — not just
knowing how to maneuver around traffic, but also knowing how to
maneuver around criminal activity," said Somilia Smith, who
coordinates Safe Routes Ambassadors at the Chicago
Department of Transportation. The grant would impact about 11,500
Chicago students.
According to Sonji Cooks, an expert on urban barriers that children
face in traveling to school, “The concern is not that they
can walk. The concern is that they can walk there safely.”
The multi-agency task force is the first of its kind in Chicago,
and it will take a multi-pronged approach to identify and remove
the barriers children face. The Department of Transportation will
identify and remedy any inadequate infrastructure, such as cracked
sidewalks. Chicago Police will target gang and drug activity in
areas near school routes to make them safer places to live —
as well as walk and bike to school. Chicago Public Schools will
work with the 20 schools to specify each school's needs.
"If we can reduce crime and improve infrastructure, parents
will feel more comfortable with their children walking to school,"
Smith said.
Another component of the proposed plan is introducing the Safe Routes
Ambassadors into the schools.
Safe Routes Ambassadors teach pedestrian safety to second graders
and bicycling safety to fifth graders. The plan's success also relies
on community involvement.
“Most kids walk to and from school already. So then the challenge
becomes, how do you take walking to school for kids who already
walk to school and make that attractive,” Cooks said. In her
work as a community networker in West Garfield Park for the Consortium
to Lower Obesity in Chicago Children, Cooks introduced a pedometer
to the students and they tracked the number of steps it took to
get to school.
When it comes to bicycling, she said, some children don’t
understand how to ride a bike safely in an urban environment.
“It’s not clear that kids know how. It’s almost
like every man for himself,” she said.
She added that it isn’t a given that every child has a bike.
“Bikes are a significant investment for a low-income family,”
Cooks said.
Smith said outreach like parent-patrolled bike trains or walking
school buses would be a significant step toward encouraging students
to walk and bike to school.
Cooks already works with parents at Marconi Community Academy and
Tilden Achievement Academy High School. Parent patrols are scheduled
for the fall and she is eager to find out the effectiveness of those
patrols.
For programs like this to work, Cooks said, it must involve the
entire community — parents and residents who don’t have
children but live around the area.
The task force applied for the $2,689,988.00 statewide grant from
the Illinois Department of Transportation in June and expects to
be notified in the fall whether the grant will be awarded.
Margo O'Hara is the Chicagoland Bicycle Federation's Communications
Manager.
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