2013-01-07 BOS Packet - Released

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January 7, 2013 Metropolitan Area Planning Council 60 Temple Place Boston, MA 02111 Dear Council members: The Lexington Board of Selectmen heartily endorse the Lexington Safe Route to School program and Department of Public Works collaborative undertaking to secure funding for studying Lexington's school zone signage. For 2010-11, in addition to commuter traffic, more than 500,000 cars annually traveled on Lexington's roads for the purpose of transporting students to and from school. Lexington's infrastructure, with roads based on cow paths and neighborhood school model designed when 80% of students walked, cannot handle the load. This has proven to be a public safety problem for our public school students, who comprise nearly one-fifth of Lexington's population, and for the community at- large. School zone signage is a known traffic calming mechanism. Lexington's is woefully insufficient. Present signage is dated, inconsistent, and is either over or under represented, depending on location. A study using an independent transportation engineer to complete an evaluation and inventory of existing school zones, signage, crosswalks, and pavement markings would be most instrumental in forming recommendations for uniform traffic devices that would meet Massachusetts requirements. Presently, seven out of nine Lexington schools participate in the Safe Routes program. The two non-participating schools are located on heavily traveled arterial roads, one being a state highway. By professionally evaluating the Town's school zone signage, we are confident that the resulting recommendations will aid in increasing the public safety of pedestrians and bicyclists at these two schools and guarantee 100%participation of Lexington schools in the Safe Routes to School program.