A small sacrifice for safety of children
A Times EditorialPublished July 29, 2005
There may have been no bigger Pinellas news story during the 2004-2005 school year than the number of children injured or killed trying to get to and from school.
After those tragedies, there was widespread acknowledgement that neither the school district nor the 25 local governments in Pinellas nor the motoring public had done enough to ensure schoolchildren's safety. There was agreement, it seemed, that starting this school year everyone needed to participate in the solutions.
So why is it that the residents of one Dunedin neighborhood think they shouldn't have to bear part of the burden for children's safety?
People who live on New York Avenue just west of Dunedin Highland Middle School are opposing the city's plan to build a sidewalk so children won't have to walk in the street. Plenty of children use New York Avenue to walk home from school, but the street has no sidewalks.
The city says the logical place to build the sidewalk is not on the east side of the street where the middle school is located, but on the west side, which is lined by single-family homes with nice lawns.
The east side of the street has a narrow, sloping shoulder and a deep drainage ditch, and beyond that, the fenced-off school campus. City officials aren't even sure if a sidewalk could be built on that sloping shoulder, but if it were, a railing would have to be erected to keep walkers from falling in the ditch. The railing would make it difficult for crews to mow and clean the ditch.
The city had hoped to have a sidewalk finished on the west side of New York Avenue by the time school starts Aug. 3.
However, residents are fighting the sidewalk plan. They say their front yards, which now extend uninterrupted to the street, are not deep enough for sidewalks or would not look as attractive with sidewalks.
One resident doesn't want to lose the bushes that line the front of his lot. "I like my bushes," Ruben Rubalcava said.
Residents also don't want the middle schoolers any closer.
"The kids would be walking right past our front windows," said resident Robert Blumer.
Some fear loitering, trash and student fights.
"They are putting all these little hoodlums in front of our house," said resident Heidi Steeves. Instead, she wants the children to be "channeled" on the other side of the street.
Steeves and other residents said they have had problems with some Dunedin Middle students in the past, with students walking in the street in groups and not moving over for traffic.
The city has delayed the sidewalk project while officials try to figure out what to do. Because of the delay, Dunedin Highland students still will be walking in the street after school opens next week.
This should not be a tough call for the city government. Because New York Avenue is a walking route for schoolchildren, it should have a sidewalk, and that sidewalk should be built in the location that is safest for pedestrians. Residents' unreasonable fear of children ages 11 to 13 should not factor in to the city's decision.