Journalistic press release explaining a complex public topic, a traffic initiative that created safe routes for students to walk and bike to school
Client context: Written for Santa Clara County Supervisor Joe Simitian, addressing cities with over 100,000 in population, inside of a district with over 2 million in population.
Process for this document: Written in the style of a newspaper story, 860 words. I consulted with SME team members and Supervisor Simitian before drafting; I also handled media distribution.
Audience and problems to solve: The goal was to enable easy cut and paste re-use by journalists or editors at local publications, and to explain to citizens a specific new traffic regulation addressing an onging safety problem. The network of relationships of the relevant government and non-government entities and the project’s obstacles are complex and also required explanation.
Simitian Proposes Safe Routes To School On Homestead Road Corridor**
San Jose - The Santa Clara County Board of Supervisors will consider a proposal by Board President Joe Simitian to expand the Safe Routes to School program on the Homestead Road corridor, which serves students in Los Altos, Cupertino, and Sunnyvale.
“Given the ever-growing danger of traffic to young pedestrians and bike riders, it’s crucial that we take every measure we can to ensure the safety of these kids,” said Simitian. “This is a complex route covering multiple jurisdictions. It requires a comprehensive planning effort.”
“We all dread hearing about another student or community member getting hurt in this corridor,” said local parent and community leader Lorien Cunningham. “Our community has seen some very serious injuries, and it feels like it’s only a matter of time until the next serious collision, injury or worse. It keeps coming back to the fact that there is no unified, safe route through these areas, to and from school. It’s not clear to kids where they’re supposed to be. They’re stuck walking and riding on the wrong side of the street, left to cross where there is no safe crossing, and deal with constant cross traffic and heavy congestion. Kids need us to act for their safety. Our community is very thankful that we will now have an opportunity to be at the table to create safer solutions for all children.”
The funding, to be considered as part of this year’s County budget process, would allocate $100,000 of one-time funds to contract with a technical facilitator to develop a multi-jurisdictional (Cities of Cupertino, Los Altos, and Sunnyvale, County of Santa Clara, and affected School Districts, Cupertino Union School District and Fremont Union High School District) conceptual plan for additional on-street safety improvements to the Safe Route to School on the Homestead Road Corridor for students from south Los Altos, northwest Cupertino, and southwest Sunnyvale traveling to Cupertino Middle School and Homestead High School. Of the total funding, $10,000 would be allocated for purposes of contract administration.
A technical consultant is needed to work with the multiple jurisdictions and community stakeholders to create a conceptual plan that:
· Inventories and identifies conflict points and safety needs/hazards; · Develops on-street improvements to correct those needs/hazards; and, · Examines potential funding sources.
The conceptual plan would serve as the basis for subsequent multi-jurisdiction applications for state and federal funding to implement identified on-street improvements.
Homestead Road begins where Foothill Expressway, Vineyard Drive, Grant Road, and El Sereno Avenue converge in south Los Altos. To reach this point, students from the northwest side of Foothill Expressway are crossing the Expressway at St. Joseph or at Arboretum. They join with students exiting the adjacent neighborhoods on the northeast side of Foothill and travel south via Grant Road, which is a frontage road paralleling the east side of Foothill Expressway. From the west, students are crossing Foothill Expressway at Vineyard Drive/Grant Road/El Sereno. Once across Foothill Expressway, these students then must cross traffic that is exiting Foothill Expressway (including from Interstate 280) to reach Homestead Road. These two groups of students end up on both the north and south sides of Homestead Road, respectively.
Once on Homestead Road headed west, numerous conflict points exist, including a commercial development with seven ingress/egress points on the south side of Homestead, a partial Class I Bicycle Path on the north side of Homestead, and Highway 85 on- and off-ramps on both sides of Homestead.
The situation is further complicated by the fact that this area is a jumble of jurisdictional boundary lines. The boundaries of the cities of Los Altos, Cupertino, and Sunnyvale converge in this area and impact responsibility for Homestead Road.
The County has right-of-way related to Foothill Expressway. Caltrans has right-of-way related to Highway 85. In addition, Cupertino Middle School is located on the north side of West Homestead in the City of Sunnyvale. Homestead High School is located on the south side of West Homestead in the City of Cupertino. These two schools are also in different school districts, Cupertino Union School District and Fremont Union High School District, respectively.
Students bicycling on the Homestead Road Corridor Safe Route to School are therefore crossing from one city to the next with no unified route, facing inconsistent guidelines from the jurisdictions on where to be or what safety rules they should follow to stay safe.
Safe Routes to School is an international movement that has taken hold in communities throughout the United States. The concept is to increase the number of children who walk or bicycle to school by funding projects that remove the barriers that currently prevent them from doing so. Those barriers include lack of infrastructure, unsafe infrastructure, lack of programs that promote walking and bicycling through education/encouragement programs aimed at children, parents, and the community.
Separate state and federal Safe Routes to School programs serve California. The California Department of Transportation (Caltrans) distributes Safe Routes funding from the Federal Highway Administration. The California state budget provides roughly an equal amount of funding for the state’s Safe Routes to School program. Funds are distributed in the form of grants.