County getting $35,000 for ‘traffic gardens’ to educate little ones about street safety
Arlington County is receiving $35,000 of aid to layout additional “traffic gardens” to help little ones discover about traffic basic safety.
Before this 7 days, the Nationwide Capital Area Transportation Scheduling Board (TPB) awarded $250,000 of consulting providers to five D.C.-place tasks with the intention of increasing “safety on the region’s roadways, primarily for its underserved communities.”
One of all those is a joint project from Arlington County and Prince George’s County to establish targeted traffic gardens at educational institutions.
“Traffic gardens are miniature transportation networks with familiar roadway components, in which young children can wander, bicycle, and scoot to learn the principles of the street and observe their transportation safety capabilities,” principal planner Christine Baker for Arlington’s Section of Environmental Products and services writes to ARLnow.
The hope is that this task and the consulting services becoming granted will aid develop common assistance and templates so that colleges can construct its have gardens on “any budget” utilizing a number of unique elements and devices.
Arlington has had two the latest illustrations of temporary faculty-primarily based traffic gardens, one at Essential Elementary School in the Bluemont community and the other at Hoffman-Boston Elementary University in Arlington Look at. People schools applied frequent, every day supplies — like spray bottles, measuring sticks, string, and chalk — to build the roadway.
“We count on that schools will use the steering to consider the website traffic back garden style and design options for their possess site,” suggests Baker. “Most colleges get advantage of below-applied challenging surfaces outdoor, like blacktops, courts or other asphalt to generate more long lasting tasks, though those with significantly less capacity can retrofit gymnasiums with tape to produce pop-up targeted traffic gardens.”
Baker also notes that younger pupils can choose the lessons acquired on these mini, safer roads and convey them back again to their community.
“Traffic gardens not only aid to educate kids on the transportation program now but instill basic safety behavior and transportation values that very last a life span,” Baker says.
The TPB, which operates under the Metropolitan Washington Council of Governments (MWCOG), will in the coming months be employing a specialist in the that will be providing doing the job with equally counties on the task. It is unclear at this point when the Arlington universities will have website traffic gardens set up.
The initiative fits in with the county’s Eyesight Zero initiative, a program to do away with transportation-connected fatalities and really serious accidents on county streets and trails in just the next decade. This incorporates the current implementation of “slow zones” close to educational facilities.
“Our Eyesight Zero transportation protection application is not just about engineering protection enhancements on our roadways. There is a huge emphasis on community engagement and schooling close to basic safety,” says Baker. “Traffic gardens are an awesome way to teach our local community associates from a youthful age to embrace safe and sound transportation procedures.”
TPB accepted 4 other initiatives for funding in nearby jurisdictions, all associated to street security and pedestrian enhancements, like in the Metropolis of Alexandria, Fairfax County, Prince William County, and the Metropolis of Falls Church.
