Support Adult Traffic Crossing Guards

I just heard a proposal by the City Council of Palo Alto to eliminate ALL adult traffic crossing guards at major school intersections to cut costs.  I would like us to show our support for funding such an important aspect of safety for our students by signing up at least 1,000 concerned Palo Alto residents.  
The specific announcement came through the Palo Alto PTA.  See  below. 

By signing this petition you agree to the following:

"As parents of Palo Alto students, we value the safety of the children in our community and support green and healthy modes of transportation to school.  We strongly urge the City Council to reject the city staff proposal to eliminate the adult crossing guards and police traffic teams that keep our children safe every school day and make it easier for them to walk and bike to school.   We understand the need to trim the city budget in difficult times like these, but not at the expense of our children’s safety."

In summary, the proposed cuts would affect Safe Routes to School as follows:

 

• Eliminate ALL crossing guards city-wide – that is 28 crossing guards, $345,000. See list of crossing guards and schools they serve here: http://www.cityofpa loalto.org/ civica/filebank/ blobdload. asp?BlobID= 7298 You will see that some of these intersections are multi-lane intersections that carry as many as 20,000-45,000 cars/day. Some on El Camino Real have posted speeds of 35mph.  Eliminating a crossing guard under such conditions is not at all practical if we are serious about encouraging children to walk and bike to school. 
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• Eliminate the ENTIRE Police Department Traffic Team (five full-time police officer positions, $894,000)—these are the motorcycle police officers who patrol school routes.  They are the responders to school site requests for spot enforcement on school commute routes.  When adult crossing guards are absent, the Traffic Team is available to make sure guarded intersections are consistently covered.  Sgt. Bonilla of the Traffic Team manages the out-sourced crossing guard service.  Sgt. Bonilla also is the Traffic Team liaison with the City School Traffic Safety Committee, providing comprehensive knowledge of vehicle code and enforcement implications of school commute problems and solutions that the committee considers. If the Traffic Team were eliminated, their responsibilities would be redistributed to regular patrol teams whose primary job is to respond to all calls, prioritizing 911 emergency assignments. This will make patrolling school commute routes a much lower priority.  Further, it will assign officers to sites without regard for their familiarity with the specific dynamics of school commute issues related to that site. Anyone who has worked with the Traffic Team knows the value of their awareness of childhood developmental issues, their understanding of the school commute circulation plans for each school site, their skill at capturing teachable moments, and their familiarity with site staff.  This team focuses on maintaining a regular enforcement presence on school commute routes during school commute times. They make a difference in both the real and perceived safety of school routes, and we know that safety is a key factor that determines whether or not families to walk and bike to school.
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The Safe Routes to School partnership (established January 2006) in Palo Alto is founded on maintaining a balance among the four E’s: Engineering, Education, Encouragement, and Enforcement.  It is not possible to achieve and sustain traffic safety without all four of these. The City, school district and PTA collaborate effectively on the first three, but only the police can enforce vehicle code on public streets that make up the city’s school commute routes. The first two proposed cuts would completely decimate the enforcement arm of our Safe Routes to School Partnership.  PTA volunteers have filled in for many of the previous cuts, but we legally CANNOT do enforcement on public streets.  This is the City of Palo Alto ’s legal responsibility.  A municipality’s first responsibility is public safety.

 

Safe Routes to School already has absorbed a number of previous cuts and reductions by attrition over recent years, with PTA volunteers filling the gaps.  Most recently, in fall 2009, the Community Crime Prevention Officer and Program Coordinator position was eliminated. Susie Ord coordinated bike licensing and helmet fitting events.  Without this support, once again, it will fall to the PTA to find a way to bring these events back to our campuses.  In the interim, the Fire Department will issue bike licenses during very limited hours at some fire stations. (Bike licenses are required by state law.  Providing licensing on campuses was a great convenience for parents and gave us an opportunity to instruct families on helmet use and other Safe Routes to School issues.)  Further, reductions in Transportation Division staffing have affected the ability of the department to respond to traffic safety concerns in a timely and effectual manner.

 

Please note that the latest budget preview proposal outlines roughly $3 million more cuts than will be necessary to close the $8.3 million budget gap.  That means that strong advocacy right now may save critical programs and positions that support our efforts to keep school commuting children safe.

http://saferoutes.paloaltopta.org/May2010/ProposedCuts.shtml