Neal Embry
Residents and Vestavia Hills City Council Member Kimberly Cook talk ahead of a meeting to discuss safe routes to school on Oct. 16.
In an effort to increase the number of students walking to Vestavia City Schools, as well as make those walking routes safer, a group of residents, along with city and school officials, met on Tuesday to start discussions as to how to do that.
“Wouldn’t it be great to be a city where the kids love to walk to school?” council member Kimberly Cook asked. “And wouldn’t it be great to be a city where it was safe for them to walk to school?”
Benefits to walking to school for students include building relationships with peers and parents, having an opportunity to decompress after the school day and being physically active, residents said.
“It’s an easy sell,” Cook said.
The question, she said, is how to make it safe.
Currently, it’s not uncommon to see students darting across U.S. 31 coming from Pizitz Middle School, with no crosswalks or crossing guards. Students walk to many of the city’s schools, and with Vestavia Elementary Dolly Ridge and the new Pizitz Middle School, located on the old Berry campus, opening next year, leaders want to make changes in time for them to have an effect on the 2019-20 school year.
Sidewalks, crosswalks, walking trails and crossing guards could all be used, residents said. After updating the residents in attendance about several ongoing city projects, Cook led a discussion about how to increase involvement in the project.
Educating both parents and children will be key, and one of the ideas brought up was a walking school bus, where parents take turns leading a group of students to school each day.
A committee will be created for each school, with the possibility of Liberty Park Elementary and Liberty Park Middle School being joined together in one committee. In the coming weeks, chairs or co-chairs for each committee will be selected, with co-chairs also being part of an upper-level task force that will include city and school officials.
Committees will explore the possible needs for each school, conducting surveys of barriers to kids walking to school and how to create excitement around the idea.
Goals include providing neighborhood access to Dolly Ridge elementary and the new Pizitz campus, completing the Massey Road sidewalk and paving project by fall 2019, hosting a city-wide Walk to School Day next fall and providing crosswalks and traffic safety controls by fall 2019.
