School, PaTHS team up for bike, pedestrian safety
The Bethlehem Central School District has named
two liaisons to the Town’s PaTHs 4 Bethlehem Committee.
Assistant Superintendent for Curriculum Jody
Monroe and Fred Powers, Supervisor for Health and Physical
Education, have volunteered to work with the committee in educating
the community on bicycle and pedestrian safety.
“I’m excited to be part of this wonderful
partnership,” said Monroe. “Safety and health education are very
important issues for the district, and working with the town will
only help our effort to have a healthy and safety conscious student
body.”
Town Senior Planner Robert Leslie and Assistant
Administrator of Parks and Recreation Jason Gallo recently met with
school officials and the BC Green Team to discuss initiatives they
have at the town level, and how the school district could fit into
their vision of making the town more bike and pedestrian friendly.
“We use a ‘3 E’ approach to what we do,” said
Leslie “Engineering, enforcement and education – and, of course, we
thought the district could help us with the education arm.”
Leslie said there were about 26 bicycle/vehicle
accidents in town last year and the majority was due to the cyclist
traveling on the wrong side of the road or otherwise not heeding
posted signage. To that end, Gallo and Leslie have asked for the
district’s help with pedestrian, bicycle, and motor vehicle safety
education.
“As the parent of a young child, I can certainly
appreciate the fact that if you teach kids at a young age what these
signs mean and what it means for their safety, they’ll carry that
knowledge with them as they go through school,” said Gallo. “And in
some cases, they’ll teach other kids and maybe some parents.”
One of PaThs’ goals is to create and maintain
safe bicycle and pedestrian routes to schools as well as parks,
recreation and cultural facilities. The committee has in the works a
proposed bicycle route pilot project that would establish a route
with shared lane markings, or “sharrows,” that would run from the
corner of Delmar Place and Kenwood Avenue near the middle school to
Elm Avenue near the high school. In between, the route would pass
directly in front of Hamagrael Elementary School.
PaTHs has many safety publications available
(Click to open as PDF):
Bicycle Safety Instructors Guide – Teachers
Bicycle Safety Student Handbook – Students
Getting There Activity Book - Cornell Local Roads Program
Walk and Bike Safely Student Workbook
Walk and Bike Safely Teacher Guide
For more information about the PaTHS 4 Bethlehem Committee, click here.