Sidewalks for students should be priority, Pasco officials say

DADE CITY — Pasco County’s elected officials don’t want today’s elementary students to be old enough to drive by the time they have sidewalks and a safe way to walk to school.

Meeting as the Metropolitan Planning Organization on Thursday, they set aside what often are territorial concerns about how to prioritize spending state transportation money. Instead, they focused on the recent decision by the school district to end bus service for students who live within a two-mile radius of their school and have what is considered a safe walking route.

Pasco County Commissioner Jack Mariano suggested that an immediate solution was needed.

Finding the money to build sidewalks and determining priority locations can be complex and time-consuming, he said. Instead, he suggested starting the planning now. Then in three years, when the county and schools begin to get money from their next penny sales tax, the projects can be built.

“Let’s start designing right now,” he said. “The way we’re doing it is not working.”

Voters haven’t said yes to renewing the Penny for Pasco tax yet. That’s likely going to be on the ballot for consideration later this year. While the board didn’t take formal action, it made clear to the transportation planning staff that student safety was a big concern.

In general, Mariano expressed frustration with the prioritizing process the Metropolitan Planning Organization uses for all projects. He was unhappy that sidewalks he wants to see in his district such as one on Zimmerman Road and a connection on Ranch Road to Ponderosa Avenue were not priorities.

“I’m not happy with the scoring system,” he said.

County Commissioner Mike Moore said he has heard from constituents concerned about their children having to walk to school. The district sent out notices two weeks ago about the change in the bus policy. Bus service within two miles of a school is not funded by the state.

The move was made because of the district’s severe shortage of bus drivers, a shortage that forced changes to school start and stop times earlier this year.

“Some of these areas won’t be safe routes to school,” Moore said. Having children walk in people’s yards in places where the street was busy and there are no sidewalks “probably will not work very well,” he said.

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Pasco transportation planner Tina Russo spoke of ongoing meetings with school officials to talk about how to handle those concerns.

“We’re going to help with funding part of this,” she said. But Russo said the process for determining which sidewalks get prioritized and how to pay for them takes time.

“This unfortunately has to happen now,” Moore said. “Things need to get moving.”

The community might have to come up with creative solutions, in the interim, such as sending rotating parent groups with students who have a distance to walk, said Commissioner Kathryn Starkey. She said that the county will have to go through the process acquiring rights of way for the sidewalks.

Commissioner Christina Fitzpatrick said she knew some roads already were designated as unsafe for students to walk, such as Tanglewood Drive, and she asked whether the county was identifying other areas where walking was unsafe. That would require the schools to continue providing bus service along those routes.

Russo said planners were doing everything possible to deal with the student safety issues.

“We feel the urgency,” Russo said. “This has been a big discussion with all of the folks in the county.”