The Peru Gazette

By Adele Douglas

The Town of Peru has been awarded $235,000 Safe Routes to School (SRTS) grant for infrastructure and non-infrastructure elements to improve the safety of walking and biking to Peru Central School. SRTS  grants are 100% federally funded and are administered by NYSDOT.

The Town has been working to improve the walkability of the hamlet by expanding the sidewalk system and keeping it maintained throughout the year.  The Town was awarded a STRS grant in 2008 to build the sidewalk along School St.

For this round of funding the Town, the Peru School community,  Clinton County Health Department’s  Healthy Schools NY Program, the Sheriff’s Office and concerned residents all came together to discuss possible improvements to encourage students to walk and bike to school by providing them with safer and more direct routes to their school buildings.

Town Supervisor Pete Glushko stated, “The Town of Peru was very pleased with the success of the initial SRTS Project, the School Street sidewalk. We sought to provide the students with a safe avenue of travel to and from school each day and the grant funding enabled us to do that.  We look forward to working with the School District, the County and with concerned parents to further enhance the safety of the Town’s children and adults as we put our second grant funding to that purpose. With the current budget situation at schools and towns, being able to access Federal funding is crucial to making these improvements a reality.”

Funding will go to: Improve safety of the crosswalk on 22B; build sidewalks where needed on campus to keep students from walking where cars and buses are driving; install bike racks at all entrances and; an educational, in-school component, to raise awareness and encourage walking and biking to school safely.

This is what faces young walkers and cyclists heading towards the Primary and Intermediate School from the School St. sidewalk – a huge stretch of unmarked asphalt.  To get to the school they have to walk along  this busy vehicle entrance (student parking is to the right and buses enter here), in front of the bus garage (white) , the fueling station and another garage, all on the left. On the right up ahead is a playing field.

This is a school morning.   A student in a bright orange shirt walks in-between the parked cars.  A cyclist cuts close around the back of them.  Please note on the right a car (lights on) driving this way.  This is also the route of several buses as they go to line up behind the Primary and Intermediate Schools.

Once past the cars everyone just stays right in the middle of the expanse of blacktop.  For the proposed project, a sidewalk/striping combination will give walkers and cyclists a well- defined and safe travel route to the school entrance, hugging the playing field on the right.

This is the Route 22B crosswalk . A proposal has been made to install two rectangular flashing beacons that turn on via push button to improve safety at the crosswalk. However, once across, walkers have nowhere to go.  A proposed sidewalk on school property would lead children diagonally away to the left, away from the very busy entrance, then a crosswalk to the existing sidewalk ahead.

Other improvements include additional sidewalk connections on the campus and education for students encouraging  walking and cycling safely.