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Helping Kids Find “Safe Routes to School” in Santa Cruz County

Safe Routes Times Publishing Group Inc tpgonlinedaily.comHelp create a Safe Routes to School Plan for 16 schools in Live Oak, Aptos and Scotts Valley in partnership with Ecology Action, the County of Santa Cruz, City of Scotts Valley, and the Santa Cruz County Health Services Agency.

The goal of this project is to gather community input and create a comprehensive plan for traffic safety improvements near schools. Parents, teachers, neighbors and concerned citizens are invited to attend one of three community meetings and provide input to create a comprehensive plan that reflects community needs.

The plan will identify barriers preventing students from walking and biking to school safely and include a list of projects to improve the County of Santa Cruz and City of Scotts Valley’s safe access to schools.

Having a Safe Routes to Schools Plan in place will also make the County and City more competitive for grant funding, which is available through Caltrans’ Active Transportation Program. This project was modeled after a similar planning process in the City of Santa Cruz; after completing the plan, Santa Cruz received $1.4M in grant funding to design and construct a variety of safety improvements around Santa Cruz City Schools.


Community members are invited to attend one of the project kickoff meetings on October 2, 4 and 10 to giver input on traffic safety issues around schools. Dinner and childcare provided as well Spanish translation.

The planning team will present the list of recommendations to stakeholders and get their feedback in the spring of 2019, and the final plan will be presented to the City Councils in early 2020. This project is funded through a Caltrans Sustainable Transportation Planning Grant.

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Find more information at ecoact.org/planningcounty, or contact Amelia Conlen at aconlen@ecoact.org or (831) 515-1351.

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