School Safety Plan Part 1: Documenting Existing Conditions

This is an installment of an 8 part series on School Safety Plans.  The next portion will be posted next Monday.

The first step in any planning exercise should be determining your current situation.  Then you can develop alternatives for changing the existing system.  Here is a checklist for documenting your school's existing transportation system:

• How do your parking lot/lots currently function?
  • Bus circulation
  • Parent parking
  • Student parking (if high school)
  • Parent drop-off/pick-up procedure
  • Students walking in parking lot?
  • Where are students outside of adult supervision?
  • Document the number of vehicles and students involved with the above maneuvers.
• What routes do kids use when they walk or bicycle to school?
  • Are there sidewalks or trails along the whole route?
  • Is there a map of the sidewalk/trail system published for parents and students?
  • How many students come along each route?
  • Where do routes cross streets?
  • What signs, pavement markings, and signals are within the routes and school zone?
  • Do you have school crossing guards?
  • Do you have “walking school buses” or “bicycling trains”?
• Street network
  • Turn lanes
  • Speed limits
  • Traffic control in place at intersections
  • Traffic volume counts
• Do student groups leave the campus for any events?

 

Comments

[Alvin Sarmiento]

To use a study, I will use the school I volunteer with. The school does not have any parking lots. As a result, the students are picked up in the street where patens double park on a crowded and narrow street corridor. As for the routes, students have many routes they take and some intersect with one another depending on which side of the school they are in. There are crossing guards to get the students in crossing busy streets as well. To keep students safe, the school and residents implemented speed limits, speed bumps, stop signs and stop lights to prevent any unnecessary accidents.