City presents Safe Routes to School action plan; Walnut Grove wins $1.8 million grant

Vancouver staff presented a draft Safe Routes to School action plan to council on Sept. 8, outlining near-term actions to encourage safer walking, biking and transit access to schools and identifying partners, funding sources and priority schools.

Senior transportation planner Maggie Dirks said the city has been developing the program for about a year and that the transportation-system plan identified Safe Routes as a near-term priority. The action plan centers on the nationally recognized “6 E’s” framework — equity, engagement, encouragement, engineering, education and evaluation — and lists partner organizations including school districts, county and regional transportation agencies, public-health partners, Cascade Bicycle Club and the Washington Traffic Safety Commission.

The city said it has dedicated some local funding for staff time, engagement and materials and identified potential funding sources for infrastructure. Dirks said the city has more than 50 schools within its boundaries and developed a prioritization methodology for focusing program resources. Prioritization factors include Title I status, the City of Vancouver equity index score for the school area, crash incidents within a quarter-mile of the school and roadway classification (used to infer traffic volumes and speeds).

Dirks said staff are conducting existing-conditions analysis with GIS and site visits and are creating a route-audit worksheet that students, parents or caregivers can use to document and report safety concerns. The city already has begun outreach, built a program web page, produced a program graphic and created flyers with safety tips and steps for organizing a walking or bike bus.

Kate (staff) and Dirks described partner coordination: monthly meetings with regional Safe Routes partners including Clark County planning and public-health staff; quarterly meetings with Vancouver and Evergreen school districts; and ongoing coordination with Cascade Bicycle Club on bicycle-safety education stemming from a state program. Dirks said Vancouver Public Schools has identified staff in its transportation department to serve as the district-level Safe Routes lead for now.

Dirks and Kate said program staffing is limited: roughly 0.3 full-time equivalent (FTE) for Maggie Dirks and about 0.1 FTE for Laurel Priest (city staff leading the effort), with the program one of several responsibilities for those planners. Councilors pressed on where speed data would come from and how quickly the city could return with actionable recommendations such as speed-calming or automated enforcement. Staff said roadway classification is being used as a proxy for speed in the prioritization, that deploying equipment to measure speeds at every school is resource intensive, and that specific traffic-calming or enforcement recommendations would likely come back within about a year as priority schools are audited.

Dirks highlighted one near-term grant: Walnut Grove Elementary received a Safe Routes to School grant of $1,800,000 to add sidewalks, crossings, illumination and other infrastructure; staff also noted speed humps have been installed on a corridor near that school to reduce vehicle speeds. Councilors encouraged outreach to family-community-resource coordinators, neighborhood associations and youth leaders to serve as Safe Routes champions and suggested surveying parents about why many drive children to school.

Staff asked for council input on the action plan and said they will continue partner outreach, school prioritization and data collection as they implement the program.