Trails Committee widens its focus to include Franklin High School

Though Victory Creek subdivision can be seen from the Pleasant View Elementary playground, there is no way to walk from here to there - yet.

Last night's Trail Committee meeting was fruitful. While our focus remains on improving accessibility to Pleasant View Elementary School through the Safe Routes to School program, alderman and committee member Kristen Wilhelm located a Wisconsin DOT Pedestrian Roadshow/Walking Workshop grant that will bring a facilitator to Franklin for a series of presentations to community stakeholders. This will provide a introduction to the Safe Routes process as well as a focus on Franklin High School access issues - - effectively widening our initial area of influence to cover two Franklin schools.

Anyone who's observed the corner of Drexel and 51st before and after a school day -- and certainly before and after sporting events -- knows that something must be done to decrease the amount of vehicles on the road. As long as students from even adjacent subdivisions (see above) need a vehicle to get to school, that congestion will continue.

While Safe Routes to School deals with engineering and trail-building issues, the program also works to educate the community, making a safer environment for non-vehicular traffic. Once we add some connectivity, drivers will learn to treat these residential streets with a great deal more respect than they do currently.

Comments

[Shelly]

Hi, if you are a decision-maker in this process, you should check out:
http://www.freiker.org

My daughter attends our neighborhood school in CO (similar to Wisconsin's weather) and Freiker has been a tremendous motivator to get people out of their cars. Let me know if you need more info!

I love your site. I was a geography major in college and took a couple of seminars on this topic and it is so fascinating to me.

[John Michlig]

Glad you like the site!

I hadn't heard of "Freiker" - looks pretty interesting and useful. I'll definitely look closely at it for ideas.