Creating a Citywide Safe Routes to School Program: Pasadena, CA, USA's Step-by-Step Approach

Institute of Transportation Engineers. ITE Journal,  Sep 2007  by Yee, Richard,  Parisi, David,  Hondorp, Brett

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IN 2005, THE CITY OF PASADENA, CA, USA, INITIATED DEVELOPMENT OF A COMPREHENSIVE SAFE ROUTES TO SCHOOL PROGRAM. THE EARLY GOALS OF THE PROGRAM WERE TO DEVELOP SUGGESTED ROUTE MAPS FOR 19 ELEMENTARY AND MIDDLE SCHOOLS; PREPARE NEW SCHOOL AREA TRAFFIC CONTROL PLANS FOR ALL SCHOOLS; AND IDENTIFY POTENTIAL STUDENT PEDESTRIAN AND MOBILITY ENHANCEMENT PROJECTS THROUGHOUT THE CITY.

IN 2005, THE CITY OF PASADENA, CA, USA, with the support of consultants, initiated the development of a comprehensive Safe Routes to School (SRTS) program. The early goals of the program were to develop suggested route maps for 19 elementary and middle schools; prepare new school area traffic control plans for all schools; and identify potential student pedestrian and mobility enhancement projects throughout the city.

An ambitious project completion schedule was set for these tasks to capture school, student and parent interest and to design and consttuct projects so that they met funding obligations.

SIGNAGE AND PAVEMENT MARKING INVENTORY

Prior to the inception of the SRTS ptogtam, hand-drafted, CAD-based location maps were used for each of the public and private schools within the city. The maps depicted schematic inventories of traffic control devices, signage and pavement markings in the proximity of each school. These maps were used to generate routine work orders for sign and striping modifications around the schools.

However, the CAD maps had not been recently updated, and the transportation department had since moved to a geographic information systems (GIS) base for its transportation mapping. Therefore, the first step of the SRTS program was to develop school location maps in a GIS format and conduct an updated inventory of existing school-area infrastructure.

Benefits to developing the maps in GIS format included the ability to integrate the features into the city's existing GIS files and to associate attributes to each individual feature (for example, all crosswalks within a school area can be labeled with that school's name). The main challenge to developing these maps in GIS was legibly symbolizing line features, specifically crosswalks and curb ramps, at the scales required to show entire school enrollment areas.

Field surveyors spent approximately two monrhs conducting inventories of school and pedestrian-related infrastructure and evaluating walking routes at the 19 schools in the program. Specific items surveyed included:

* School area signage, including the School Advance Warning Assembly, School Crosswalk Warning Assembly, School Speed Limit Assembly and School Warning Assembly;

* Locations and condition of SLOW SCHOOL XING pavement stencils;

* School crosswalk locations, including color (school zone crosswalks in California are required to be yellow), style (transverse or ladder) and condition;

* Curb ramp presence/ absence at each corner; and

* Locations of traffic signals and stop signs.

SUGGESTED WALKING ROUTE MAPS AND PARENT SURVEY

Once the updated GIS school location maps were created, the next step of the program involved the creation of suggested walking route maps for each school, based on the field inventory and known student walking patterns. The goal was to create maps that conveyed key pedestrian infrastructure information in a clear and visually compelling format that would be used by parents and their children in selecting a walking route to school. As with the signing and striping inventory maps, the suggested walking route maps were developed using the citywide GIS system.

The project team first researched walking route maps used in other cities to compare the different features and information conveyed and the various layout styles. After reviewing many of the black-and-white engineering type walking route maps in use in many other cities, the project team developed a unique template for Pasadena that included a logo and color symbols and showed land uses such as local parks and other nearby schools, which would be a likely destination for neighborhood children. The fact that the maps were to be posted on the city's Web site and e-mailed to schools as their main form of distribution allowed the use of color, although symbols were designed such that black-and-white reproduction still would be possible.

The aesthetic emphasis of these maps required additional work to transfer the GIS map outputs into a graphics software program to enhance some of the fonts, colors and line work, bur the hope was that more visually appealing maps would be more likely to be used by parents and children than busy maps with superfluous information.

The maps show directional atrows along the recommended routes to walk to school from all streets and pathways within the school's enrollment boundary, along with key elements of the pedestrian and bicycle infrastiuctute. Crossings were a key factor in developing the suggested routes-the routes utilize marked cross-walk locations with existing traffic signals, all-way stop controls, or crossing guards.