Long-awaited sidewalk project breaks ground near Williamsburg school

JAMES CITY — A long-awaited sidewalk improvement project broke ground last week near Clara Byrd Baker Elementary School, meaning that more students could be walking to school in the near future.

A collaboration between James City County and Williamsburg-James City County Public Schools, the project will supply walkways, crosswalks and pedestrian signage in the area around the school, including the Governor’s Grove and Village Square communities. Construction is expected to take four months.

“It’ll provide some connectivity and some nice pedestrian improvements that that area does not currently have,” said Paul Holt, James City County planning director.

The $361,949 grant awarded through the Virginia Department of Transportation in 2018 will facilitate a stretch of sidewalk from the Armory Music store on John Tyler Highway to the intersection with Ironbound Road, as well as from the entrance of Village Square to the driveway of the school. One component of a safe route the funding does not cover, however, is a crossing guard.

“I’m a proponent of (the sidewalk project), but my only concern is there’s no one there to monitor (students) going back and forth,” Clara Byrd Baker Principal Mike Hurley said.

Hurley said he has been petitioning annually for a crossing guard, but for now, he plans to rely on parent volunteers to help shepherd children in the mornings and afternoons.

In November 2016, school stakeholders participated in a walkabout of the area around Clara Byrd Baker to identify opportunities for safer infrastructure. At the time, 327 students lived within a 1-mile radius of the school, but 97% rode the bus or were driven by their parents, according to the walkabout report.

Back then, WJCC Schools had a Safe Routes to School Program coordinator who, with help from parents, worked with JCC to apply for the sidewalk project grant through the Federal Transportation Alternatives program.

Safe Routes to School is a strategy promoted by the U.S. Department of Transportation that pushes government and local organizations to adopt a comprehensive approach to making it easy for kids to walk and bike to school. The VDOT program has been going since 2007.

After the grant was awarded, the county’s board of supervisors appropriated the funds in December 2018, and the project was supposed to start in 2019. Then, the COVID-19 pandemic happened, slowing the project down.

Now that the project is underway, the school district is reviewing its nontransportation zone policy. Currently, the rule that school buses will not service students who live within a mile of their school only applies to secondary school students, but that soon could include elementary school students.

According to an April 21 post on the school district’s website, families who may be affected by changes to the transportation policy were supposed to have been notified last week. The new elementary nontransportation zones are expected to be finalized by the end of June, when parents will receive more communication.

WJCC Schools received a grant in March for a new Safe Routes to School Program coordinator, but the position hasn’t been filled yet. Going forward, the school division also wants to find more opportunities to partner and enhance Safe Routes at other schools, WJCC Schools spokeswoman Kara Wall said.

“By investing in infrastructure projects and enhancing safe pathways to school,” Wall said, “we help build a culture of health in the community where walking and biking to school are both practical and encouraged.”

J.W. Caterine, jwcat757@gmail.com