ATTACHMENT 4

My name is Heidi Harkins and I am a co-chair of the Parent Advocacy Committee at Mary Scroggs Elementary School.  I, along with others, have been working with the Healthy Routes to School Initiative to look at ways in which we can encourage children at Scroggs to walk or bike to school.  The positive health impact of increased exercise like walking to school has been well documented and we would like to see more children taking part. 

Through this initiative, we are gathering information about how students travel to and from Scroggs, the reasons why parents choose a particular mode of transportation, as well as looking at any concerns parents have about walking/biking to school.   We have gathered this information in a variety of ways including student surveys, parent surveys, a walk zone audit and informal interviews with parents.  One notable statistic from our survey is that of the approximately 40% of Scroggs students who live in the Walk Zone, only about 10% walk or bike to school.  Obviously, we would like to see that number grow. 

Three safety concerns have been raised repeatedly as major impediments to increasing the numbers of children walking to Scroggs.  Two of these, we believe, are critical safety issues that must be addressed as soon as possible in order to ensure the safety of children who currently walk to Scroggs.  We have prioritized these three concerns as follows:  (1) Aberdeen Street crosswalk  (2)  Kildaire/Copperline Intersection and (3) bike racks

Aberdeen Street was recognized as a safety concern by Scroggs parents prior to any of our data collection.  Aberdeen is a road that is crossed by the public greenway just prior to arriving at the Scroggs school property.  It is a popular place for parents to park in order to avoid the kiss-n-go lane at the school.  Often, many vehicles are parked there, right up to the path where the greenway crosses the road.  When children are crossing this road, these parked vehicles hinder the view of both drivers, and children, entering the crosswalk.  There have been a number of  “close calls” in which children have not been seen and a car has stopped at the very last moment to avoid hitting them. On the Town Council agenda tonight there is a request for two important improvements – posting No Parking signs for 100 feet on either side of the crosswalk and painting the curb for no parking.  These will definitely improve the safety of this crossing area.  In addition, we are also requesting a raised crosswalk.  The raised crosswalk would control vehicular speed at this busy crosswalk and make this area much safer. 

The second priority is the Kildaire/Copperline intersection.  This is a very busy intersection with cars entering the intersection from both Kildaire and Copperline roads.  In addition, Chapel Hill Daycare is directly across from the intersection with access to their parking area just past the intersection.   Often, vehicles traveling down Kildaire towards Scroggs (which is downhill) do not even see the stop sign.  We are requesting that raised crosswalks be constructed at both Kildaire and Copperline roads.  These raised crosswalks would increase the visibility of the crossing areas from these roads and would force vehicles traveling down Kildaire to stop. 

Finally, we need additional bike racks for the students who are biking to school.  On any given day last Fall, there were as many as 20-30 bikes lying on the ground because the existing bike racks were full.  We are promoting bike riding and feel that it is appropriate to have racks available for those students who choose to bike to school.

I want to thank you in advance for your attention to these requests.  The Walk Zone around Scroggs is a wonderful walkable community.  These improvements will go far to also make it a safe walkable community for students walking or biking to school.