The City of Seattle has surpassed its promise to create Safe Routes to School, with the Seattle Department of Transportation (SDOT) completing improvements at every public school in the city, an initiative stemming from the 2015 Move Seattle Levy. Mayor Bruce Harrell hailed the program's success, noting in a statement obtained by the Mayor's Office, “Safe streets are essential for public safety and I am proud of Seattle’s award-winning Safe Routes to School program for reaching this milestone of delivering improvements at every public school in our city. These investments make a real difference in both protecting students on their way to class and as part of our larger commitment to help young people learn, grow, and achieve their potential.” The latest upgrades include new stop signs and marked crosswalks at Olympic View Elementary designed to make the trek to school safer for students.
Since Seattle voters gave the green light to the Levy in 2015, SDOT has developed an impressive number of over 260 projects focusing on various safety measures for schools - these have included new sidewalks, crosswalks, speed cushions, and a range of other traffic calming strategies, the most recent being completed this week at Olympic View Elementary in the Maple Leaf neighborhood where children now have new all-way stop signs, marked crosswalks, and speed humps which will tremendously enhance safety as they make their way to and from school.
Among the projects completed this year, the SDOT blog post highlights a suite of safety measures implemented near several elementary schools and K-8 educational facilities, such as Adams Elementary, Kimball Elementary, South Shore PK-8, and Hazel Wolf K-8. Following this achievement, Greg Spotts, SDOT Director expressed enthusiasm about the Levy to Move Seattle's accomplishment saying, “Eight years ago the Levy to Move Seattle set an ambitious goal of building a safe route for students to walk, bike, and roll to every public school in our city. I’m thrilled to have reached the exciting milestone of not only meeting this goal, but exceeding it,” as noted by the Mayor's Office.
