2005-12-05-WALKS-min - Laserfiche WebLink

Browse Search

SIDEWALK COMMITTEE Minutes of December 5, 2005 Meeting The Lexington’s Sidewalk Committee meeting was convened by Chairman Craig Weeks at 12:10 in the Selectman¹s Meeting Room. Twelve regular members and three advisors were present. It was MSP that the Minutes of the November meeting be accepted as submitted. 1. Mr. Weeks described the Bridge safe routes to school, the sidewalk repair requests and the sidewalk snow plowing priority schedules to be sent to the Town DPW and asked for a committee vote on approval. This was MSP after some discussion. He showed a map of the Bridge school area with the safe routes, pointing out that there was a gap for students walking to Bridge school from SW of Marrett Rd that needed attention. In the discussion, Ms Herbert described how consultations with Bridge school administration and PTA had been used to choose a small number of safe walking routes, realizing that the resources of the DPW would have to stretch to include this extra sidewalk plowing. Ms Herbert suggested that bus stop signs be made up to indicate these sites for parents and bus drivers. Several members noted that some school districts, Fiske as one example, were making unrealistic demands for the limited DPW sidewalk plowing resources. At Fiske, Ms.Guttag said the need was not for sidewalk plowing this year but for plowing out safe standing ground for the many students who were being bussed to Harrington in this transition year On the other hand, the point was made that because Fiske students are being bussed out of district does not mean that their bussing issues are any different from any of the other schools with regards to bus stop accessibility. All schools have the same needs as relates to bussing when it comes to weather-related safety concerns. To meet this problem, Ms Cecere offered to develop a list of school bus stops town wide for the DPW. She was told that it would be better to allow the individual school administrations to deal with DPW via the superintendent¹s office and the bus company on these issues After some discussion a subcommittee was created to help generate a town wide bus stop list which would then be submitted the school superintendents for review. On the subcommittee Ms Crocker, Ms Guttag, Ms Cecere. Ms Guttag asked that Susan Bruce from Fiske PTA be included on the subcommittee. Ms Krieger said she agreed that bus stops with 5 or more students should have plowing priority for safety reasons, that sidewalk plowing near active schools should continue as before, but that the Bridge pilot program was critical and should get priority in any extra sidewalk plowing called for in the pilot program. She said that this program will eventually spread to other schools, the first of which being those districts that showed organization and strong voluntary participation. On the issue of how DPW work on sidewalk repairs and snow plowing is prioritized, Mr. Weeks said he would ask Wayne Brooks to explain how these questions were decided upon at the next LexSWC meeting.