San Juan Bautista
– Parents may soon be feeling a little better about letting
their kids bike to Anzar High School.
San Juan Bautista – Parents may soon be feeling a little better about letting their kids bike to Anzar High School.
The San Benito County Council of Governments has been awarded $450,000 from the state to help construct bike lanes from San Juan Bautista to the school.The funding comes from Caltrans’ Safe Routes to School Program, an initiative designed to encourage students to walk or bike to school each day without risking life and limb.
“We’re working to promote alternative transportation and student safety,” said Veronica Lezama, COG Traffic Planner. “We’re not just about building highways.”
While biking and walking was once the most common way to get to school, fewer than 15 percent of all students do so today, according to a study from the U.S. Department of Transportation.
The grant was one of more than 100 awarded to agencies throughout the state this June, totaling more than $32 million.
San Juan’s bike lane will cost approximately $1.3 million, so the Caltrans grant will be able to cover nearly half of its construction. The rest of the funding will come from other state, federal and local sources.
“We also want to launch a safety campaign not only for the students but for drivers,” Lezama said. “So that they understand that cyclists are part of the traffic system and know how to work with them.”
The project will span three and a half miles and create bike lanes on both sides of San Juan Highway, which is currently unsafe for bikes because there are virtually no shoulders on the road and irrigation ditches on neighboring agricultural land pose a threat to young cyclists. Though the county applied for the Safe Routes grant last June, school officials have been clamoring for a bike route since Anzar High opened in 1997.
Anzar Principal Charlene McKowen has said that bike racks at Anzar stand unused because parents are scared to let their children ride to school.
Anzar isn’t the only school looking for solutions, either. Getting students of all ages to school in a safe and healthy manner has spawned projects all over the globe, including Denmark, New York and Chicago, according to the Safe Routes to School Web site. Not only do these efforts seek to improve students’ safety, but they also hope to promote student health and have a positive impact on the local environment and traffic flow by decreasing the number of cars on the road headed to school.
A completion date for the Anzar project will not be set until full funding can be secured.
Danielle Smith covers education for the Free Lance. Reach her at 637-5566, ext. 336 or [email protected]
