On Tuesday, February 21st, Brownwood ISD, in conjunction with the Texas Department of Transportation, hosted a free training program for area school and city officials interested in learning about the Safe Routes to School programs and the qualifications necessary for TxDOT funding for these types of projects.  With an approved SRTS program, applicants can qualify for funding up to $500,000 for infrastructure projects and $100,000 for non-infrastructure projects.

The training was held from 8:00 a.m. to 4:30 p.m. on the Brownwood Intermediate School campus, and included tips, strategies, and techniques on initiating programs that maintain safe routes for children to get to and from school as well as identifying problems and creating solutions for pick-up and drop-off. 

“We talked about maps, and where the appropriate corridors are,” said Kevin Kokes during his presentation.  “When it’s too far, or it’s not safe, what can you do either on campus or nearby to create activities?  It really comes down to, at a local level, what is going to work for you.”

Kokes, an Urban Planner with Lochner, was brought in by TxDOT to facilitate the training and during the presentation gave examples of competitions, programs, and activities other schools and communities have embraced that promote safety when walking, riding bicycles, or being dropped off or picked up from school.  One example included a punch-card system that rewarded students for days they walked to school on the mapped routes, while another showed the local law enforcement writing “tickets”, redeemable for rewards, to students who were caught doing a safe activity such as wearing a bicycle helmet. “Rather than reprimanding a negative activity that you’re seeing, you’re rewarding a positive activity,” said Kokes.

Near the end of the training, attendants participated in a field exercise outside of the Brownwood Intermediate School and Coggin Elementary school buildings where they observed the school dismissal process to identify any problems and come up with possible solutions regarding the safety and flow of traffic, buses, and students walking or riding bicycles as they leave from school for the day.

Kokes added that Safe Routes to School programs need to be ongoing, and to be effective the community needs to be aware of the issues and work with local leaders, school officials, health and safety officers, and transportation professionals to come up with solutions.