Federal grants promote walking, biking to school

<p>For thousands of Sonoma County children, getting to school means pulling a seat belt over their shoulder and having mom or dad drive a few blocks to campus.</p><p>To combat the car habit, the federal government is putting more than $1 million into two grants for the city of Santa Rosa and two school districts to encourage more students to walk and ride bikes to school.</p><p>The grants are divided into two parts -- one to fund ongoing education programs and the other to pay for infrastructure such as improved sidewalks, additional crosswalks and lighting systems.</p><p>"It's really awesome," said Tina Panza, director of Safe Routes to Schools for the Sonoma County Bicycle Coalition, which is helping implement the ongoing program.</p><p>"It's very unique to the school," she said of the Safe Routes to School education component. "It can include environmental awareness, teaching kids how to map their routes to school. It's all related to walking and bicycling to school -- how to do that, and how to do it safely."</p><p>The award comes on the heels of the most successful Walk and Roll to School Day ever in Sonoma County. More than 4,000 students participated in the annual event last week.</p><p>The federal grants, administered through Caltrans, will award $611,700 to the city for infrastructure improvements related to bicycle and pedestrian safety near Kawana and Bellevue elementary schools in south Santa Rosa.</p><p>A second grant for $500,000 was awarded to the Sonoma County Department of Health Services to work with eight schools in the Roseland and Bellevue districts on bicycle and pedestrian safety through the Safe Routes to School program.</p><p>The $611,000 grant does not require matching funds from the city, according to traffic engineer Jason Nutt.</p><p>"We are using the city's money in an incredible way," he said. "As far as we are concerned, that is a really good cost benefit."</p><p>The city is planning to install a sidewalk on Tokay Street between Lapiz Lane and Turquoise Way, an all-way stop at the intersection of Tokay and Amethyst Way and create a path from the neighborhood just south of Kawana School to the campus because Moraga Drive does not connect the neighborhood to the campus.</p><p>Near Elsie Allen High School and Bellevue Elementary, a pedestrian-activated flashing beacon will be installed where Bellevue and Primrose avenues intersect.</p><p>The light will be installed near where Elsie Allen senior Patrick Scott was struck and killed in 1998 while walking home along the edge of Bellevue Avenue, which had no sidewalks.</p><p>The education portion of the grant is expected to be under way next summer, but much of the construction work is not likely to begin before 2010.</p><p>The most recent Safe Routes to School awards follow the successful campaigns for local agencies to win the funding. In this cycle, 119 applications were accepted out of 401 requests, according to Lynn Walton, program manager of the county's Chronic Disease and Childhood Injury Prevention division.</p><p>"First and foremost, it is obesity prevention," Walton said of the goals of the local program. "Every additional amount of physical activity helps because it builds up, and over the course of the year, it makes a big difference."</p><p>Last fall, Sebastopol got nearly $327,000, Santa Rosa received $250,000 and the Cotati-Rohnert Park Unified School District got $83,000 for education and infrastructure through Safe Routes to Schools.</p><p>You can reach Staff Writer Kerry Benefield at 526-8671 or kerry.benefield@pressdemocrat</p><p>.com.</p>