A collaborative effort between the City of Akron and Akron Public Schools is aimed at making it easier for students to walk and bike to school.
Akron Public Schools was recently named one of 19 Ohio school districts to receive state funds for projects aimed at enhancing safety. Improvements and renovations range from sidewalks, signage and updated pavement markings for pedestrian crossings to curb ramps, crosswalks and light poles.
The impact in Akron could affect up to two-thirds of the school district’s students — about 13,000 — who live within a two-mile radius of their assigned schools and have to provide their own transportation to get there.
APS is comprised of 47 schools with a student body of more than 21,000 students.
Debra Foulk, the district’s director of Business Affairs, said her organization is always searching for ways to ensure safety when students commute to and from school, especially when considering the amount of traffic around APS school buildings at the beginning and end of school days.
“We encourage all of our students and their families to use the best method that they feel is available to them,” Foulk said, “in order to safely take our students to school.
“If walking and biking is their choice, we want to make that as safe as possible.”
More than 40 district properties are expected to enjoy infrastructure evaluations and improvements, including:
- Forest Hill Community Learning Center — upgrades at six nearby intersections; high visibility crosswalks, raised crosswalks.
- Crouse CLC — improvements at five nearby intersections; high visibility crosswalks.
- Ellet CLC — upgrades at four intersections; raised crosswalks, high visibility crosswalks.
- Findley CLC — upgrades at three intersections; rectangular, rapid-flashing beacons at pedestrian crosswalks, high visibility crosswalks.
Through 2027, Akron Public Schools will receive $375,000 from the Safe Routes to School program, which is spending $8 million statewide on local infrastructure. The school district will also receive $125,000 over the next two years to fund non-infrastructure projects such as traffic gardens — areas where children learn road safety and biking skills on scaled-down streets.
School Travel Plan: What prevents children from walking and biking to school?
In February, more than 150 respondents to an APS caregiver survey shared that they used a family vehicle to transport their children to school. Survey results also concluded less than 50 children in the families of respondents walked or used a bike to reach school.
Written comments from survey participants cited potential crime as a deterrent preventing their children from walking or biking to school. Other reasons included unsafe roadways and traffic.
Survey results were documented and presented as part of the City of Akron’s 2024 School Travel Plan, which recommends a two-year timeframe to evaluate and improve crosswalks located next to schools. One proposed improvement includes the incorporation of Leading Pedestrian Intervals, which gives pedestrians more time to enter crosswalks before traffic lights turn green. The plan also advocates for the City of Akron, over the next decade, to conduct studies on bicycle infrastructure. The studies would determine how to better connect bicycle routes and identify streets that need resurfacing.
“As part of this plan, data was collected mostly by direct observation of where and how school children were getting to school and what barriers were in their way, particularly as it relates to safety,” said Stephanie Marsh, a spokesperson for the City of Akron.
ODOT director: ‘Our responsibility’ to make it easier for students to walk to school
The program, which is funded by the Ohio Department of Transportation, will support 29 projects across the state, including Akron’s schools.
“It is our responsibility to give this next generation safer infrastructure to enjoy these modes of transportation,” said Jack Marchbank, director of the Ohio Department of Transportation.
Since the program’s inception in 2005, the Safe Routes to School program has provided more than $83 million in funding for Ohio schools and local government programs to improve student safety.
