Sidewalk concerns

KVUE's Jessica Vess reports

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Students in Taylor face a crosswalk to no-where. Most of the schools in town don't have a sidewalk system. Many students are forced to walk on the road to get home; sometimes through heavy traffic.

At 55mph, traffic along Highway 95 in town moves fast and steadily.

On that same road sits Taylor Middle School, with no sidewalks.

“It's quite dangerous, because this is a heavy-travelled area,” said Shelley Smith, concerned parent.

Students who live in the neighborhood across the street from the school are too close campus to take a bus. They have to find another way to get home

“Some of them are taking short cuts,” said Naomi Pasemann.

Most of the short cuts students take are through grass, but to get home, some students have to cross the road.

“Sometimes they just cut across the road,” said Marcie Svatek, concerned parent.

It's happening across the district from the middle school to the elementary schools. Some parents don’t take the risk and drive their children to and from school instead.

“I mainly drop them off because of the safety issues that are here,” said Smith.

In front of T.H. Johnson Elementary, where Smith’s daughter goes to school, there’s a sidewalk across the street leading into a newly developed neighborhood. However, on the school side of the road, the pavement drops off; right in front of campus, before cars on the road are even out of the school zone.

“It surprises me that Taylor doesn't have sidewalks everywhere,” said Svatek who also teaches at T.H. Johnson.

With a $750,000 state grant, that’s going to change. Assistant City Manager Jim Dunaway says the city will take advantage of a state program called Safe Routes to Schools.

The grant pays for an entire school district sidewalk system that connects middle schools and elementary schools. It began in 2001 in the state.

Dunaway says the city applied for the grant every year since then and finally received the grant last year. By that time, the city was getting more and more calls of concern about the missing sidewalks.

“The kids are in many cases, forced out in the middle of the street,” said Jim Dunaway, assistant city manager of Taylor.

Since receiving the grant, the city has mapped out a tentative plan for the Taylor sidewalk system. It would stretch down the front of Naomi Pasemann Elementary, through a neighborhood, up to Taylor Middle School, back through a neighborhood and down to T.H. Johnson Elementary.

The system will mean pouring concrete on about 100 private yards in the neighborhoods around the schools.

The work will likely begin with design in the spring of 2009. Construction could begin as early as that summer.