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Safe Routes Program Aims to Get Kids Walking in Essex

It’s been in the works for seven years, but this summer a plan to improve walkability in Essex has finally made the jump from paper to pavement. Under the federal Safe Routes to School project, the town is using grant money awarded in 2010 to make the area around Essex Elementary School safer for cyclists and pedestrians. The goal of the federal program is to encourage bicycling and walking in a one-mile radius around grade schools and elementary schools.

Various delays, mainly on the state level, are the reason that construction has only just begun.

“It’s been in the works for many years,” said Town Planner John Guszkowski, who wrote the grant application. “A great deal of the delay was because we had at least four or five different project managers over the past years—the project just kept getting handed off to different people.”

Another reason that construction finally kicked off is that the grant money would have expired.

“There’s nothing like a deadline to focus the project,” Guszkowski commented. “Both the state and the town realized these funds were set to go away, and it helped us buckle down and get the project design and bidding finalized.”

The first phase of the project, updating the sidewalks around Essex Elementary School, takes place this summer.

“By the time the kids are ready to come back at the end of August, this sidewalk project will be done,” Guszkowski said.

A sidewalk will be installed on the south side of Main Street heading west from the school to Charles Street, and the existing sidewalk on the north side of the road will be widened to meet modern standards.

“There’s going to be a new crosswalk across Main Street at Charles Street so kids—or anybody, really—will be able to get all the way from Falls River Drive to Charles Street on the north side of the road and then cross over to the school,” Guszkowski added. The project will also include a walkway leading up to the school’s east entrance.

“It’s really about providing a safe and consistent, seamless pathway for people to travel along Main Street to and from the school,” Guszkowski said.

The town was awarded about $425,000 in federal grant money. Currently, the town is awaiting approval of another grant that would improve the sidewalks in Centerbrook from the Steam Train to Cumberland Farms.

“This really should be considered the first step in ramping up the town’s pedestrian network,” said Guszkowski. “Hopefully future phases will extend further into Ivoryton and will improve sidewalks through Main Street into Centerbrook, Westbook Road toward Bokum—all these things are future hopes. It’s all a matter of funding availability.

“The town is being very aggressive about looking for those funds,” Guszkowski continued. “Every funding opportunity that comes across the town’s radar where we can apply for state or federal money to do sidewalk and bicycle improvements, we’re going after it.”

Around Essex Elementary, the sidewalk updates will hopefully fulfill not just town goals, but those of families. According to public surveys done at the time of the initial grant application, more kids will walk to school once the new sidewalks and crosswalk are in place.

“The parent surveys that we had done back then indicated that if there was a safer sidewalk network, they would absolutely walk more,” Guszkowski said.