Sidewalks planned near BC Elementary

The route to Boulder Creek Elementary School will soon be a safer place to walk for children on their way to and from school.
In October, Caltrans awarded the county of Santa Cruz $250,000 through the federal State Routes to School program to build walking paths and a retaining wall on three streets near the elementary school.
The award came as a surprise to Boulder Creek Elementary School Principal Lynn Chappell, who initially encouraged the county to apply for money to repair the walkways six or seven years ago, she said.
Safe Route to Schools began in 2005, and the county has applied year after year in an effort to get the $500,000 it needs to build sidewalks along Harmon and Lomond streets on the hills near the elementary school. A 300-foot retaining wall will be built on the campus along Laurel Street, too.
“There’s no clear marked walking path (on Lomond Street),” Chappell said. “This is going to make it safer.”
Lomond Street is particularly dangerous for walkers in wet weather.
“On one side, it’s a draining hill,” Chappell said. “On the other side, people park there.”
When it rains, she said, students and their parents sometimes walk in the middle of the road to avoid the muddy, wet side of the narrow street.
The new sidewalks will connect, in several places, the gravel and concrete paths that were constructed by volunteers more than four years ago.
Though the county applied for both federal and state Safe Routes to School funding, it received only the federal grant. The project is fully funded, however — the other half by Transportation Development Act funding, said Jack Sohriakoff, county senior civil engineer.
The county will likely get the money in 2013, Sohriakoff said, and work will begin after that.
According to the county’s application, 150 students walk along the roadways each day. That number could increase by 25 percent to close to 200 students using the new pathways once it becomes safer to walk there.
Boulder Creek’s award was part of $66 million Caltrans awarded this year for federally funded Safe Routes to School projects.