Safe routes to school and library

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Description

From the P.I.E.5 Year Plan.

(Work with Croton-Harmon school district to develop “safe routes” for walking/biking and make plan for future improvements along those routes; Cleveland Avenue and Gottwald Circle improvements)

Updates

• 22 September 2022 - while not much progress has been made, some related issues have been discussed and in some cases pursued, including #54, #64, #53, #3, #74
• 22 July 2020 - committee discussed Safe Routes to School, especially to PVC. See related issue #73.
• September 2016 - in undated press releases, both the school district website and village website state the beginning of a Safe Routes to School initiative, although it is not clear anything was done and the page directs users to follow progress on proprietary gated social media platforms where no further activity is posted.

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At the June 22 Board of Trustees work session, we presented the following recommendations regarding save routes to school. DPW Superintendent Frank Balbi expressed skepticism that sharrows are effective; he also said his crew was busy with the Croton Point Avenue project.

1. Paint four-way crosswalk boxes along Benedict Avenue at Young, Hastings, and Pennfield avenues. It is common for schoolchildren to cross Benedict to catch the school bus. Ideally, we would have bulbouts as well, given how wide Benedict is -- though they could be striped with paint instead of built up. That also could serve as a pilot for that idea to be introduced elsewhere in the city without having to wait for the dummy light project to be completed. In addition, we ask the village to install high visibility pedestrian crossing signs as Croton does elsewhere with mid-block crossings.

2. In order to make biking to PVC safer, we also recommend using the newly purchased stencil to paint sharrows along Thompson Avenues between Cleveland Drive and the school and Radnor Avenue between Bungalow and Old Post South. These should be accompanied by "Bike Route" signs placed about once every block. Mr. Plotkin informed us that the PVC currently recommends students use those streets to reach the school, as opposed to Olcott. (See attached map.) However, the committee felt that few people know about these preferred routes. The signage and indicators, which should be oriented in both directions to assist students biking to and from school, will help reinforce that idea among both students who are biking as well as the drivers who have to look out for them.

As you will see from the attached map, there are other streets that are part of the preferred route network, and indeed, there are plenty of other streets that we would like the village to paint and sign, including the full length of Cleveland (after the gas work is done), Benedict, Old Post South, and Truesdale. The more we do to designate these lesser trafficked streets as bike routes, the less bicyclists will use Maple Street.

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Note related issues:

• 64 recommending painted crosswalks across Benedict has been partially completed at Hastings Ave.

• 54 recommends widespread repairs along Cleveland Dr to improve safety for all.

• 86 recommends a mixed-use trail from Morningside Dr to CET

• 93 recommends a sidewalk along Cleveland from CET rear entrance to Gerstein.

• 73 recommends improved cycling access to PVC

• 63 recommends painting sharrows on safe the roads to PVC

• 16 recommends a school zone speed limit along Maple by PVC

• 72 recommends reopening the trail running along the high school between Old Post Rd S and PVC.