Fremont officials are hoping to encourage more students to walk and bike to school by making it safer for them to do so.
When it finishes assessing traffic around all campuses, the city intends to draw up route maps that highlight suggested streets and bike paths the students could take. So far, the city’s Safe Routes to School website has 19 of those maps available.
City Public Works Director Hans Larsen said in an interview that walking and biking to school isn’t as commonplace today as decades ago.
“Obviously for parents and kids to do that they want to feel that there’s a safe route that they can take,” he said, noting the project should make it easier for people to walk.
The effort began roughly two years ago as a collaboration between the city and school district, which split the approximately $200,000 cost of the traffic assessments.
Larsen said the city and district worked together in previous years to address problems at school sites after hearing from parents or educators.
What they’re doing today “is way off the charts in terms of what any other jurisdiction is doing, in that we’re actually comprehensively doing every school within the Fremont Unified School District,” he added.
The assessments are done by a group of people including a traffic engineer, consultant, an official from the police department and schools, and sometimes interested parents. The groups walk different routes to schools, noting boundaries, potential barriers and possible improvements.
Larsen said by this spring, when all school assessments are complete, about 500 safety improvement recommendations will be made.
“And most of those, you know 80 percent of these, are really low cost, basically signing and striping work,” Larsen said.
By using existing money, largely from Alameda County Measure BB funds, that work will be done over the next two years in conjunction with other maintenance and repair projects on city streets and sidewalks, according to Larsen.
“It’s a pretty high level of productivity in focusing around the schools,” he said of the roughly 400 fixes and upgrades, which could include brightening faded crosswalks, installing stop signs and adding parking restrictions.
He said those repairs could be completed this summer at almost 20 of the district’s 42 schools.
But it could take more than a decade to find enough money to do major repairs, including new sidewalks, curb extensions and installation of flashing beacons at heavy pedestrian access areas, he added.
Those bigger jobs could cost about $15 million, Larsen said, noting that grants reserved for Safe Routes to School programs from the state and other sources could help fill the gap.
“We want people to be safe around school zones, but this is also very much tied into a shared interest from the city and the school district to have more kids walk and bike to school,” Larsen said.
“But there’s also a lot of physical activity benefits and social benefits that are gained by having robust walk-to-school programs,” he added.
While the Fremont Unified School District doesn’t track how many children walk or bike to school each day, spokesman Brian Killgore said the district sees broad participation in events such as the International Walk & Roll to School Day in October.
Killgore said 15 classrooms have signed up so far for the Alameda County Transportation Commission’s Golden Sneaker Contest, which will take place between Feb. 26 and March 9.
The contest encourages students to choose healthy travel options to school, and track it in their classrooms.