Columbia 'Safe Routes': They Walked & Rolled!

Dozens of young Columbians turned out this week for the first annual "Walk & Roll to School Day" and helped make history!

The event was part of a growing international effort to encourage more students to walk or bicycle to school. More than fifty students participated at Immaculate Conception School, and another 25 or more walked or biked for the first time to Parkview Elementary School. Mayor Kevin Hutchinson turned out to encourage the participants, and the event was captured by local media.

Participation was relatively sparse at Columbia Middle School, largely due to significant barriers to safe biking and walking to that location. This school's impediments to safer routes--as well as barriers to walking or biking to the other schools in Columbia--are assessed in a new School Travel plan approved by city and school officials in September. Partners in the local Safe Routes To School program will now begin seeking funding to make recommended improvements.

(Photo courtesy louisphotos.com)

Lace Up Your Sneakers...

...oil your bicycle chain, wear a warm coat, and join the fun!

Parkview Elementary, Columbia Middle School and Immaculate Conception School are partnering with the City of Columbia, the Monroe County YMCA and other partners to celebrate the community’s first annual Walk & Roll To School Day this Wednesday, October 28th.

Students from each school will be walking or riding bicycles along with parents, teachers and community leaders. Mayor Kevin Hutchinson and members of the Columbia City Council will also participate in the event. The event will mark the community’s recognition of International Walk to School Day, an event that includes 5,000 schools from all 50 states as well as 40 countries around the world.

Walk to School events work to create safer routes for walking and bicycling and emphasize the importance of issues such as increasing physical activity among children, pedestrian safety, traffic congestion, concern for the environment and building connections between families, schools and the broader community.

The event is being organized by the local Safe Routes To School Steering Committee, a broad-based group of partner organizations and community members that recently completed a comprehensive School Travel Plan.

Miller-Fiege Home Sold to City

The historic Miller-Fiege home--a landmark at 140 S. Main St.--was transferred yesterday into the City's ownership.

This home, built in 1852, was purchased with proceeds from the City's bond issue approved earlier this year. It contains numerous antiques from the period. Columbia's Heritage & Preservation Commission will now take on the task of organizing the building for eventual use as a museum and tourist attraction.

Community Supports Child Travel Safety

Next Wednesday morning, middle school and elementary students across Columbia will participate in a special event: Walk & Roll to School Day. This event will be sponsored by local participants in the Safe Routes To School initiative, a new community partnership between the City of Columbia, local schools, parents and students.

This is not Columbia's first effort to improve bicycle safety for its younger citizens, however. Local efforts have already launched two noteworthy efforts:

Safety Town is a child accident prevention program that introduces safety awareness and prevention procedures to children between the ages of 5 and 7. The program uses a simulated town layout, classroom facility and off campus field trip. Children learn safety procedures through their own involvement under the guidance of a police officer, fire fighters, paramedics, certified teachers and trained volunteers. Children practice and experience "real life" situations before confronted with situations on their own. In accordance with their age and maturity, children are trained to evaluate "safe from unsafe" and learn how to react safely when confronted with dangerous situations.

Joseph Cangas, M.D., a pediatrician at Illini Pediatrics in Columbia and an avid bicyclist, received the American Medical Association’s Young Physician Section Community Service Award in 2007 for his ongoing work as “the helmet doctor.” In May, 2005, he launched the Helmets First!program. Dr. Cangas gives presentations--and free bike helmets--to school and community groups on an average of once a week. He has organized bicycle rodeos in five Illinois communities, and the Waterloo, Columbia and Salem police departments are handing out rewards to kids wearing helmets. And, Dr. Cangas always is available to properly fit helmets at his office.

A Better Path to School

Parkview Elementary, Columbia Middle School and Immaculate Conception School have worked with the City of Columbia, the Monroe County YMCA and other partners to develop a School Travel Plan that identifies barriers to walking or bicycling to school.

Columbia has the vision to create a city-wide network of paths (not sidewalks) that will connect abandoned railroad right-of-way to Rueck Rd. (north-south), link Main St. to Bolm-Schuhkraft Park via Monroe St. (east-west), and tie Columbia Middle School to the old middle school site via a new ball field currently under construction. These paths will encourage bicycling and walking for all community residents and particularly for school-age children. Where these paths run along a public street, they will be separated by a strip of grass in order to provide a measure of traffic calming. These improvements are consistent with Columbia’s Bike & Greenway Plan, adopted in 2006.

City Hall = Ivory Castle?

Wendy Water's most recent post in her blog, All About Cities, ponders why city halls are so often "distinct, self-contained building[s] separated from most of the key residential, business and entertainment areas of the city."

"Perhaps city hall workers need to have a variety of locales from which they can work," she muses. "Sitting in an office overlooking a poor neighborhood filled with the homeless, mentally ill and/or drug addicted might help inspire more creativity in solving this issue. Reporting to work in a struggling business district similarly might allow city workers to better understand the needs of businesses in that area."

Are city workers isolated from the rest of their community? Is this less a problem in a smaller city like Columbia, or is it true everywhere?

Keep Playin' That Walk & Roll!

Next Wednesday morning, October 29th, middle school and elementary students across Columbia will lace up their sneakers and roll out their bikes for a special event: Walk & Roll to School Day. This event will be sponsored by local participants in the Safe Routes To School initiative, a new community partnership between the City of Columbia, local schools, parents and students.

Columbia's event is this community's first foray into an annual celebration observed in more than 42 countries to promote physical activity and taking safe routes to school. It's focus is encouraging more students to walk or ride to school, a trend that reflects increasing public interest in what has been come to be known as the "walkability" factor--more consumers are looking for places to live where they don't always have to drive and pump less gas to get to where they want to go.

Parkview Elementary, Columbia Middle School and Immaculate Conception School have agreed to encourage their students to bypass the family mini-van and roll or stroll to school next Wednesday in a combined effort to boost non-motorized attendance. Representatives from these schools and other community leaders recently adopted a School Travel Plan that identifies barriers to such travel--and suggests solutions.

More on the elements of the School Travel Plan in posts to follow this week...