MPO takes feedback on Safe Routes to School update
CHEYENNE — First assembled in 2010, Cheyenne's plan that identifies and addresses the needs of the safest routes to schools in the city and county is getting an update.
While the Cheyenne Metropolitan Planning Organization expects to have this plan update complete by the end of October, officials are currently taking public feedback on what they have so far. This week, they hosted three events to showcase their top priorities in crafting safer routes for children to walk or bike to school while also reducing traffic congestion.
According to the current draft, this update to the plan comes at an important time as traffic deaths and serious injuries remain high, and students' safety and well-being continue to be at stake while getting to and from school. The plan only addresses schools within Laramie County School District 1.
"Recent deaths of children on Cheyenne streets underscore the importance of evaluating and identifying areas adjacent to schools to help improve safety of students walking, biking, and using other forms of active transportation to commute from and to school," the draft update said.
In the 2021-22 school year, LCSD1 served 14,010 students. Of those, more than 60% relied on bus transportation, while the rest, around 5,600 students, used other modes of transportation, including walking, bicycling, driving or drop-offs to commute between home and school.
When a final draft of the plan update is complete, the MPO will have immediate, short-term and long-term suggestions for the city and county to act on to improve the safety and efficiency of transportation to school.
Christopher Yaney, interim director of the Cheyenne MPO, said some of the top immediate actionable items they may include in the final plan include visibility and accessibility of crosswalks, curb extensions on high-traffic streets and implementing more HAWK beacons, the traffic control devices used to stop traffic from both directions and allow a pedestrian to cross.
These HAWK beacons are used on major arterial roads that are dangerous to cross, similar to what is on Yellowstone Road at Davis Elementary. Currently, there are two of these systems under construction — one across Western Hills Boulevard at McCormick Junior High and another across Pershing Boulevard at McCann Avenue.
"Once everything is approved and it's been adopted, then it gets handed over to the city of Cheyenne and Laramie County to work on the schools in their district, helping LCSD1 to address any issues that they see need to be addressed right now," Yaney said.
Funding for this plan update primarily came from a federal grant under the Federal Safe Routes to School Program, with additional contributions from Cheyenne Regional Medical Center and the Wyoming Department of Transportation. Cheyenne MPO staff told the Wyoming Tribune Eagle that total funds accumulated for the plan update amounted to around $250,000.
However, the city or county will need to pay for any changes they choose to make in response to the findings of the updated report. Yaney said there are grant options available to them that they may seek in order to fund some of these updates.
He said he hopes the updates to this plan will encourage more kids to walk or bike to school and decrease traffic congestion in school zones.
On Thursday, the Cheyenne MPO held its third and final open house at Cheyenne's East High School to showcase a draft update to the plan. The two previous nights, MPO held open houses at Cheyenne's South High School and Central High School.
In these public outreach sessions, Cheyenne MPO transportation planner Joanne Cho said that the public has been pretty receptive to the plan so far.
"They're interested in their school environment. So, actually, that's the best part about this is that, you know, we get to do a little bit of fact checking, too, in terms of some of the things that they've identified since the last time we've had our open house last fall," she said. "... So, I think overall, it's been a positive kind of feedback. Obviously, we'd love to hear more."
