SICOG Conducting Research for Children’s Safety on School Commute Routes

POCATELLO, Idaho (KIFI) – As the weather warms, more children are biking or walking to school. The Southeast Idaho Council of Governments is working in partnership with other organizations to address safety concerns during childrens' commutes.

On April 23, SICOG is leading a group of volunteers to do a "Walk Audit" of the area and neighborhoods surrounding Syringa Elementary School. The purpose of the audit is to assess the safety of the walking routes for students at Syringa. This will include looking for sidewalks, crosswalks on busy roads, traffic patterns and the speed of traffic, and more.

"So when we're looking at the safety concerns it's also like where are kids currently? What spaces are they using? And then are those spaces safe?" said Haley Reed, Safe Routes to School Coordinator at SICOG. "And how could we make everywhere else safe for them to walk and bike?"

The Walk Audit is part of a larger School Travel Plan project led by Pocatello/Chubbuck Safe Routes to School program, which works to promote safety for students. The plans are a collaborative effort between the city and SICOG, School District 25 and the partnering engineering firm Kimley-Horn. Simplot has also provided support for this project.

"So what we've collected from our surveys and travel accounts and mock audits and all of that, all gets compiled together and then we send it back to our stakeholders. We've got a number of, people from the city of Pocatello that are helping out on the team," Reed said. "When they go for more funding from federal or state grants, they can use that research that we've done and check like we've already done a study here, and this is what the conditions are like."

The team will look at areas within a mile of the school. Syringa has two busy streets nearby: Yellowstone and Hiline. Collaborating with the city for data on traffic patterns of these roads, SICOG can help determine where safety needs aren't being met.

"We don't really want kids crossing Yellowstone right now. It doesn't have good infrastructure for kids to be crossing," Reed said. "Hiline doesn't have sidewalks on it either for a good stretch of it."

Another of the main concern comes from auditing schools in rural areas or smaller towns. The sidewalks can often be not well-maintained and become dangerous to students.

"When we do these out in our rural areas, one of the main things that we see is just either there's not a lot of sidewalks, or the sidewalks are in really bad repair and they're they're not well-maintained because a lot of cities have it where the individual is responsible for the sidewalk in front of their home," she said.

Following the Walk Audit, SICOG is hosting a community meeting where parents can share their experiences and thoughts on their kids' safety when commuting to Syringa. The meeting will be at 5 p.m. on Thursday, April 23.

To get involved with volunteering for the Walk Audit, please reach out to Haley Reed at (208) 233-4535 ext. 1014 or email at haley.reed@sicog.org.