Carl Cozier Elementary received a federal grant making
it possible for Bellingham Public Works to invest $175,000 in the Carl Cozier
Safe Routes to School Safety Improvements project which will move into the
construction phase this spring, according to the project manager Steve Day.
According to Day, the Carl Cozier Safe Routes to
School project will add a sidewalk on Gladstone Street and install a flashing
crosswalk and school zone light at the intersection of Potter Street and
Lincoln Street.
Principal of Carl Cozier Elementary, Eric Paige, said
that by creating safer walking routes the school has the ability to improve
student health.
“Around the nation there is a lot of talk of child
obesity, we are promoting a healthy lifestyle and reducing that number,” said
Paige.
Paige also added that the improvements to walking
routes will reduce the amount of parents who drive their students to school
every day, which in turn will decrease traffic in the area around the school.
“Some families don’t have cars so having a way to get
here is important,” said Paige.
The project began as an idea back in 2011, recalled
Paige, when a family who lived off of Lincoln Street wrote a letter to the school
saying that they needed safety improvements to be done in order to feel
comfortable sending their kids walking to and from school every day.
“More than students, it will impact their families,
their parents,” said Paige.
According to Paige, one of the reasons walking is
important to the school is because Bellingham has such an active-lifestyle
culture.
“Students walking fits with our community and the
values we have,” said Paige.
The choice to improve these two locations Day said was
to fill in a “missing link.”
By working with the school district Day said the city
took into consideration the pre-existing walking routes that the school had in
place.
According to Day, other major walking routes to school
were better equipped already, including Puget Street and the Toledo Court area,
both of which have sidewalks.
The choice to put in a flashing lighted crosswalk and
school zone sign at the intersection of Potter and Lincoln was of similar
reasoning. Day said that this intersection seemed to be one of last heavily
used in the area without such equipment.
Gaythia Weis, Puget Neighborhood Association
President, explained that Carl Cozier Elementary has what they call a “walking
school bus,” a program where parent volunteers walk students to and from school.
Weis said that two parents meet the children at a
designated location every morning and walk them to school. In the afternoon
parents take the children from class to the same location where they go their
separate ways until they reach home.
The program will continue to go on after the
improvements in other areas with a high number of student walkers, said Paige.
According to Day, before receiving the federal grant
the school took a count of how many students walk to school in order to prove
that the school was well deserving of the grant.
The same kind of count will occur after the project is
completed which is projected to be after this coming summer, said Day.
Paige stressed that after the project is completed
there will still be work to be done in educating parents and families about the
benefits of having their children walk to school.
“We want to educate families about how this [walking]
will work in their children’s best interest, as well as their own,” said Paige.
Weis also felt that the walks to school benefit
students, saying that the children had fun on their way to school, playing the
whole way there and back.
This type of federal grant does not extend towards
buses, that money comes from a completely different place, says Day, who added
that busing doesn’t have the same health impacts as walking.
“Studies show that walking promotes child wellness,”
said Day.
According to Day, the project is currently in the
design phase. After the design has been completed the city will put the project
up for bid and hire the contractor who has the best bid then construction will
quickly follow.
Day said they hope to begin construction as soon as
kids are out of school for the summer and finish in about a month and a half,
plenty of time before the new school year starts.
The project is managed by the public works department
who has hired a consultant for the design process.
