Trailways and Traffic Safety Committee Presents Reco's

At the February 13th city council meeting, Doug French, Co-Chair of the Temporary Trailways and Traffic Safety Committee with Greg Howells (director of the Rye YMCA), presented the Committee’s prioritized recommendations. The committee's recommendations are certainly timely with both the Boston Post Road "diet plan" and the recent accident involving a student walking to school.

The Committee is focused on a pedestrian network that links points of destination with good signage; a need for a trailway plan (outside groups (the County for example) are designing plans to come though Rye); a need for safer routes to school; our declining infrastructure; our growing active population; and that now is the time to tap into outside grant funding, to leverage planned City capital projects and coordinate with outside initiatives.

French said the mandate to the Committee was to study and develop a plan for pedestrian safety, school pedestrian and traffic safety, and trailway development in one comprehensive plan.

The Committee’s top recommendations are as follows:

1. Implement school safety projects and apply for safe routes funding. Focus on: a) re-striping the Boston Post Road from Rye High School to Osborn Road; and b) create a sidewalk or trailway on the west side of the Boston Post road from Johnson Place to Hornridge Road.
2. Immediately redesign and repair areas with potential safety hazards (sidewalks along Oakland Beach Avenue up to Milton Road)
3. Leverage planned City Capital Projects (widen and re-stripe Forest Avenue from Martin Road to Manursing Way; improve the sidewalk along the west side of Theodore Fremd along train tracks)
4. Tie into County’s Playland Parkway and Theodore Fremd Projects (re-stripe Midland Avenue to Damiano Recreation Center; fill major gaps on west side at North Street and along Theodore Fremd)
5. Take care of some of the simpler things, such as connecting minor sidewalk gaps.

The Call to Action from the Committee to the Council is to:

1. Endorse the top 3 to 4 priorities as outlined above
2. Designate a person to take the lead in getting key stakeholders (schools, city, neighborhood groups) together for feedback, action and role clarification.
3. Begin phase 2 assessment-planning to include costs, engineering and grants (including Safe Routes to School grant due April 1, and Federal Transportation Enhancement Funds, due June 1)

Discussion followed concerning the criteria required for the Safe Routes to School Grant. Greg Howells, Director of the Rye YMCA said it should provide more benefits to more children and encompass elements of the 5E’s (Engineering, Education, Enforcement, Encouragement and Evaluation). Bob Zahm, School Board Member, said it was doubtful the schools can move fast enough to provide much help and he emphasized that getting people to walk requires a culture change over and above providing the sidewalks. Brian Dempsey said the Traffic and Transportation Committee favors re-striping the Boston Post Road with the “Diet” approach and it would be good if it could get into the grant. Helen Gates, grant writer, urged homeowner involvement and having permits already in place in order to make the application competitive.