Mount Penn's Walking School Bus

Contact: Michele Barrett, President
WalkBikeBerks
(610) 779-9702

December 9, 2008

For Immediate Release: Mount Penn Elementary School’s Walking School Bus

Studies show that fewer children are walking and biking to school, and more children are at risk of becoming overweight. Changing behaviors of children and parents require creative solutions that are safe and fun. Implementing a walking school bus can be both.

On Wednesday, December 10, Mount Penn Elementary will hold a second walk to school day celebration as part of their campaign to get more children walking to school. Together with WalkBikeBerks, Mount Penn Administrators, teachers and parents will create a ‘walking school bus’ to lead children through their community streets. A walking school bus is a group of children walking to school with one or more adults. If that sounds simple, it is, and that’s part of the beauty of the walking school bus.

This program is a result of a PANA (Pennsylvania Advocates for Nutrition and Activity) Safe Routes to School Academy Mini-Grant. Safe Routes to School (SRTS) programs are sustained efforts by parents, schools, community leaders and local, state, and federal governments to improve the health and well-being of children by enabling and encouraging them to walk and bicycle to school.

Mount Penn Elementary students will practice pedestrian safety skills, enjoy social time with their friends, and adopt an active lifestyle that can change their futures. “Two recent studies have found that walking to school is associated with higher overall physical activity throughout the day. There are many potential benefits of physical activity for youth including:

• Weight and blood pressure control
• Bone, muscle, and joint health and maintenance
• Reduction in the risk of diabetes
• Improved psychological welfare
• Better academic performance
  

Mount Penn Administrators hope to see other benefits realized in their community as well. As much as 26% of morning traffic can be school-related. Traffic can lead to even less walking or biking. As more children are driven, more parents become convinced that traffic conditions make it unsafe for walking and biking and they join the line of cars at the school. When more children walk to school, the number of cars surrounding the school is reduced at pick-up and drop-off times making it safer for children and reducing traffic congestion.


WalkBikeBerks is a county-wide nonprofit organization working to make walking and bicycling practical, convenient and safe recreation and transportation options for everyone in Berks County, PA. WalkBikeBerks was established in February 2008 and is working with every community members to promote ongoing bicycle and pedestrian improvements through engineering, education, encouragement and enforcement programs. They are working to provide SRTS programs to all schools in the county. To learn more, contact walkbikeberks@yahoo.com.

The Penn State Hershey Center for Nutrition & Activity Promotion works on a statewide scale through Pennsylvania Advocates for Nutrition and Activity (PANA) to deliver programs and events that support healthy eating and physical activity in schools, recreation, healthcare, and the community. A new round of SRTS Academy Mini-Grants are available online now at http://www.srtsacademy.org/.

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Unfinished Business

December 8, 2008

Meeting Agenda

Public Comment

Unfinished Business
Diamond Credit Union Part 1
Diamond Credit Union Part 2
Diamond Credit Union Part 3

I told the President

AASHTO WANTS TO HEAR FROM YOU:

"Here’s YOUR chance to tell President-elect Barack Obama and the new Congress what they need to know to take action to improve transportation next year.


What’s bugging you?"

You are encouraged to visit the IToldThePresident.org website to:
Submit a Comment Submit a Video View all Comments

"What’s on YOUR mind?
In one year, the legislation that decides how the federal government funds and supports transportation will end.
Congress and the new President must come up with smart solutions for solving congestion, improving safety, and paying to repair and rebuild our 50-year-old interstate system and other highways, bridges, roads and transit.
There’s a lot riding on these decisions.
We want our elected officials to hear from YOU. "



"The American Association of State Highway and Transportation Officials (AASHTO) is the 'Voice of Transportation' representing State Departments of Transportation in all 50 states, the District of Columbia and Puerto Rico. AASHTO is a nonprofit, nonpartisan association serving as a catalyst for excellence in transportation. "

http://www.itoldthepresident.org/

Sightline Video: Your Way on the Highway

What if you could hit the open road right here in Berks County?

Open to more transit and bicycles.

Open to more car sharing and flex driving.

Open to saving money on gas.

Watch this short video from Sightline and find out.

http://www.sightline.org/maps/animated_maps/your-way-on-the-highway

$60 Million in Smart Transportation Funding -- Dec. 15

Do Not Miss this Deadline.

December 15.

http://www.smart-transportation.com

Complete the two page application. Submit by December 15. Create better -- walkable, bikable -- transportation in Berks County!

Go!

SIDEWALK WAIVER DENIED!

Go to: http://www.co.berks.pa.us/exeter/cwp/view.asp?a=1467&Q=493279
Select: Diamond Credit Union

Dear [Exeter Township] Board of Supervisors:

I want to sincerely thank you for the decision on November 24, 2008 to deny the waiver of the sidewalk ordinance for Diamond Credit Union. I want to directly thank you, Mr. Kennedy, for your statement that "If we think it's unsafe to walk along 422, wouldn't it be safer to have a sidewalk? and If we don't start somewhere, we'll never have sidewalks." I also greatly appreciate the comments from Michelle Kircher who said, "You have Sheetz across the street, you have Pineland Park down the road. Kevin's right, you have to start someplace. If you want to promote [walkability] in the township, then you just have to do it. This is a corner property."

I also appreciate that Mr. Wilson will pass along to the Planning Commissioners that "if sidewalks are to be there, we want them now." I am so pleased that the Planners and the Supervisors are working so closely together on this -- and so many other issues that impact our quality of life.

I do not know if you are aware, but that location (or at one of the corners of that very same intersection) is a designated school bus stop for elementary children in Exeter Township -- as I have been told. I am not only pleased with the decision for you to promote a walkable community, but I am also deeply grateful that you have made a decision that will directly protect the safety of the most vulnerable members of our township -- the children who stand at the intersection of 422 and Pineland Road waiting for their school bus every morning and afternoon. Thank you.


Sincerely,
Michele Barrett

Scenes from 47th Street in Exeter

The intersection of Oak Parkway and 47th Street in Exeter Township is more than an access road to the Exeter Library and the new shopping center -- it is home to families, both young and old. We live and play here. We need to stand on the edge of our lawns to mow, to plant flowers and trees, to get our mail and greet our neighbors. We need to walk along and across 47th Street to walk our dogs, allow our children to play on a friend's swing set, or borrow a cup of sugar while we're baking holiday cookies. Young teens cross the street to visit our oldest residents to deliver mail or take in their newspapers. Older teens cross the street in the evenings to babysit, or they ride their bicycles from their homes to the library, the park, to their friends' to play ball, or to after school activities.

In Exeter -- our street -- this beautiful street filled with young and old, different colors and different cultures, all neighborly and caring -- our street has been compromised. The integrity of our small neighborhood community has been threatened. Our quality of life has been diminished. The safety of every single one of us is at risk.


See here where road takes priority over sidewalk -- where cars become more important than people. (*note -- there will be no sidewalk continued here -- the school bus stop for children.)

Now that the construction is complete and the road is open -- "Hallelujah," say all of you who are frustrated with waiting in stopped car traffic coming and going from work, school, or errands -- but FOUR LANES OF SPEEDING TRAFFIC now race up and down along the street we call home.

We still need to stand at our lawn's edge to wait for our children to get onto and off of their school buses. We still need to interact with our neighbors and our community. We still need to walk or bike across our street -- because we are not going to drive to simply cross the street.

47th Street needs pedestrian accommodations -- sidewalks and crosswalks, school bus stop signs, and speed limit enforcement. The new traffic pattern will need to be monitored and drivers will need time to learn how to safely travel on a widened roadway that still serves only residents -- this is a neighborhood.

See if you can find a safe passage for us in the pictures below.