Montgomery Transportation Dept. Missing In Action
On Safe Walks To School
Press release issued August 15, 2013
Montgomery County streets endanger kids walking to school, as the county's Dept. of Transportation hews to outdated policies.
As National Transportation Safety Board chair Deborah Hersman meets in White Flint this morning with Rep. Chris Van Hollen to talk about transportation safety for schoolchildren, MCDOT director Arthur Holmes still has not replied to a May 7 letter from parents and safety advocates around the county. The letter listed 10 low-cost ways to make the county's streets safer for walking to school.
“Traffic engineers need remedial education even more than schoolchildren,” said Tina Slater, president of the Action Committee for Transit which organized the letter. said ACT president Tina Slater.
“In our county, speed limits are too high, lanes are too wide, crosswalks aren't marked, and unsafe turns are allowed,” She pointed to Damascus High School with a 30-mph “school zone” speed limit. “Cars should move no faster than 20 mph in school zones,” she said.
ACT noted that the county police department has shifted its pedestrian safety campaigns to target violations by drivers as well as pedestrians. Yet the county transportation department continues to follow obsolete traffic engineering policies that create dangerous road conditions for pedestrians and bicyclists. “Enforcement by itself can't fix roads that are built to be unsafe,” Slater said.