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Former Safe Routes to School committee member urges San Mateo to publish plan and restore coordinator role
Summary
A member of the city's Safe Routes to School strategic planning committee said the plan created in 2024 has not been published and urged the council to restore a funded Safe Routes coordinator position and implement the committee ction plan; staff said they would follow up.
A member of the City of San Mateo’s Safe Routes to School strategic planning committee told the City Council on Monday that the committee’s completed plan, produced after six months of meetings in 2024, has not been published and asked the city to restore the previously funded coordinator role.
“All of our work was to create safe routes to school in San Mateo,” said Allison (Lisonbee) McQueen, identified in the meeting as a member of the 2024 Safe Routes to School strategic planning committee. McQueen said the committee—comprised of city public-works staff, transit agency staff, school-district employees, parents, teachers and safety advocates—met for hours each month and collected data from students on what would help them walk, bike and take transit to school safely.
McQueen criticized a recent letter from the city and Foster City councils to the San Mateo-Foster City School District for asking the district to do tasks that, she said, are the city’s responsibility. “The kids are asking for infrastructure, and that is DPW territory, not the school district,” McQueen said. She challenged statistics cited in the city’s letter, saying one helmet-use statistic was invalid per the original study’s authors.
Her requests to the council were direct: publish the Safe Routes to School strategic plan as promised; restore the city-funded Safe Routes position; and create an action plan to implement the committee’s recommendations. “We took our assignment as committee members seriously,” McQueen said. “We asked the City of San Mateo to do the same.”
Staff response: During reports and announcements later in the meeting, a staff member identified as Nicole said she would follow up with public-works staff. Nicole told the council the position in question is funded as a halftime position and that the transportation division is “looking at restructuring overall.” She said she would provide an update in weekly council communications.
Ending: McQueen’s remarks were heard during the public-comment portion of the meeting. Council members asked staff to follow up and requested that the completed strategic plan be published and that staffing for Safe Routes be clarified.
