ABOVE: One of Franklin's many "roads to nowhere." In the background: Pleasant View Elementary School, which is accessible by a single, slim, sidewalk-less, shoulder-less road.
A mixed bag at at a productive Franklin Trails Committee meeting Thursday night.
First, some very good news: The committee has been awarded a Walking Workshop grant from the Wisconsin Department of Transportation. The grant was brought to the committee by alderman Kristen Wilhelm, who also completed the application.
The Walking Workshop will act as a launch for the comprehensive Safe Routes to School program, through which we hope to get a significant grant for the city of Franklin which will make it possible for more children to walk or bike to school if they choose. The grant requires no match from the city of Franklin, so the funds would be, essentially, free money that we can use for engineering, education, encouragement, and enforcement efforts.
Once it became clear that we would be pursuing the Safe Routes to School grant, we immediately met with Franklin School District superintendent Dr. Steve Patz, as input from the district and Pleasant View administration will be vital. We also asked that a Franklin School Board member be asked to join the Trails Committee.
Our Trails Committee is an organizational body that consists of membership appointed by the mayor. We were tasked with (quoting the April 7th motion) "researching grants to provide funds for design, land acquisition,construction of walking and/or bicycle paths specific to S. 51st Street, and a connector between Pleasant View Elementary School and S. 51st Street and return to the Council with recommendation for application of grants."
Since then, the Council has approved the Trails Committee's pursuit of a Walking Workshop grant, and the larger, very comprehensive Safe Routes to School (SRTS) grant (which is limited to areas two miles from a grade school; the Walking Workshop is free to address Franklin High School).
At this point, the establishment of specific goals and identification of problems we want to overcome will be the job of a larger, yet-to-be-formed SRTS Task Force that will consist of stakeholders from all areas of the community; school faculty, parents, residents, homeowner's associations, public safety (fire and police) officials, City staff, etc. These are the people who will decide our specific areas of focus as we address "non-vehicular connectivity" in Franklin -- specifically, in this case, for students attending Pleasant View Elementary.
There was, however, some dissent from one member of the committee as we were spit-balling suggested goals to bring into the first task force meeting. More on that in an upcoming posting when I discuss the difference between Design Speed, Posted Speed, and Operating Speed as they relate to the Drexel/51st/Rawson speedways and the safety of anyone not sheathed in metal. I'll also talk a little bit about how sprawling, incremental development in suburbs creates monster collector roads that eventually need to be tamed.
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