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State Safe Routes coordinator offers walk-audit, microgrant and school event tools for rural towns
Summary
Connecticut’s Safe Routes to School coordinator described walk audits, in-school bike/pedestrian safety training and a $5,000 microgrant for municipalities and schools; the program scales to rural conditions and can support school events such as Walk to School Day.
Virgil Moriarty, a state coordinator with the Connecticut Department of Transportation’s Safe Routes to School program, briefed the council on education, encouragement and engineering tools aimed at increasing safe walking and biking for schoolchildren — including options adapted for rural towns.
Moriarty described the Safe Routes program’s core elements (education, encouragement, engineering, enforcement and evaluation), said the region has had limited participation to date given rural distances and road geometry, and offered several services to municipal partners: - Walk audits and mini road-safety audits that examine arrival/dismissal zones, routes to school, signage and traffic speeds; audits are multidisciplinary and vetted by towns. - In-school bike and pedestrian safety training, bike rodeos and helmet fittings. - A $5,000 non-competitive microgrant available to municipalities/schools for bikes, racks, helmets and related equipment; the presenter said several towns have used the microgrant. - A Walk to Rural School Day event on May 7 with outreach materials and incentives (stickers, bookmarks) for participating schools.
Moriarty said the program provides a GIS map of participating schools and examples of “before-and-after” engineering fixes such as speed tables and signage changes implemented after audits. He encouraged towns to register events and offered to send slides and flyers to the COG for distribution. Multiple council members reported positive experiences: one said every child at a school received a new bike after receiving microgrant funds and described improved school attendance on event days.
The COG did not take any vote; Moriarty said teams can provide follow-up audits, training and grant-application assistance on request.
