Commissioners explore Winesburg sidewalk options
For a road that sees plenty of automobile and foot traffic, the area along County Road 160 at Winesburg School is a safety concern for children and parents who cross it before and after school. The county recently passed a resolution that it hopes will lead to funding to create a walkway and sidewalk.
The Holmes County commissioners recently discussed and passed a resolution that will hopefully pave the way for safer routes of travel for children and adults near Winesburg Elementary.
The Holmes County commissioners passed Resolution #02-28-22-4, authorizing and directing Holmes County engineer Chris Young to apply to the Ohio Department of Transportation for Safe Routes to School funding for the Winesburg Elementary School Sidewalk and Pedestrian Improvement Project.
The resolution said the Winesburg Elementary School Sidewalk and Pedestrian Improvement Project qualifies as a transportation activity eligible to receive federal funding. U.S. Congress has set aside funds for Safe Routes to School projects. The projected cost of the project is estimated at $248,000.
According to Young, the county has been working with East Holmes Schools on the logistics of the proposal for some time. He said he met with East Holmes School District superintendent Erik Beun concerning the area surrounding the school, specifically the area north of the school that crosses County Road 160.
“Mr. Beun contacted us and said there were some safety concerns that they wanted to address,” Young said. “It’s definitely an issue, so hopefully we will get funded. When it comes to our kids, we want to keep them as safe as we possibly can.”
The discussion centered around the fact that there is no crosswalk and sidewalk to provide safety for the children who were getting on and off busses and cross County Road 160 to walk home or to get to their parents’ vehicles.
“They have a lot of people crossing the road there, and there are some issues that we felt needed to be addressed,” Young said. “There is no sidewalk that runs along the county road there; it’s only a grass strip. A lot of people are crossing there, and kids are crossing there before and after school. We are looking at making a crosswalk there so kids have one specific place to cross the road.”
Young said it would provide added safety for kids waiting in line to board their respective buses.
In addition, many of the children cross County Road 160 to go to Winesburg Park after school, and Young said providing a safer avenue for kids to do so also is part of the goal. He said the hope is that through the Safe Routes project, the county could create a sidewalk down a small, unused alley that would create a more efficient and safer route for the children to reach the park from school.
“We are looking at taking the sidewalk all the way from across the school down to the park,” Young said, adding some parents drop off and pick up their kids at the park and children will walk the short distance from the park to the school.
Should the county land the SRTS funds, the county would be responsible in providing maintenance for the sidewalk and would take on any project cost over and above the maximum amount.
Because of the need, it was deemed as an emergency measure necessary for immediate preservation of public peace, health and safety of the county, allowing the county to apply for consideration of Safe Routes program funding.