Moses Lake group scores important grants

Committee focused on bringing traffic safety to children around schools awarded money

MOSES LAKE — The Safe Routes To School Committee scored two important grants to make paths and roads around schools safer for children.

The Bicycle Alliance of Washington awarded the committee a grant for $5,600 for a study of traffic issues around Peninsula Elementary, and $6,600 for a study of traffic issues around Longview Elementary.

An substantial number of kids who live in the West Marina Drive area of town either walk or pedal to Peninsula Elementary School, having to cross Broadway Avenue near its Burress Street intersection during hours of high traffic, forcing kids to dodge vehicles in a zone with no help for them to cross the street. Furthermore, Burress is a heavily trafficked street itself, with people coming from Peninsula Drive and Texas Street and onto Broadway.

Kids attending Longview Elementary have a similar set of problems. The school is within the city limits, but the main street to get to it is not. Maple Drive has no sidewalks on either side and plenty of traffic, as hundreds of kids are either dropped off or bussed to the school.

The grant for the study of the traffic problems near Longview Elementary will look into the probability of building a multi-use pedestrian and bicycle path. The grant that will focus on the Peninsula Elementary School will look into possibly bringing a stoplight to the Burress and Broadway intersection or a flashing yellow light.

These grants, Dennis Parr, chairman of the Safe Routes To School Committee said, will set up the ground work for the committee to apply to grants from the Washington State Department of Transportation, which hopefully will provide the needed funding for what the studies propose.

"These kids walk or bike to school at the same time people drive to work," Parr said. "They should be safer."