Moville street improvements encourage kids to walk to school

MOVILLE, Iowa (AP) — Heath DeStigter watched the school bus drive six blocks from Woodbury Central School to drop off students at their homes.

DeStigter and other members of Moville's Safe Routes to School/Complete Streets Coalition, which formed in 2014, learned some parents weren't letting their kids walk or bike to school because they didn't feel it was safe, the Sioux City Journal (http://bit.ly/1NAbaYz ) reported.

Last fall, 14 curb ramps and ADA pads — mats with truncated domes — were installed on Fourth Street to make the route to school smoother and safer.

Angela Drent, Siouxland District Health Department health planner, said the Partnership to Improve Community Health Grant provides funds to address chronic diseases and their associated risk factors, such as limited access to healthy foods and opportunities for physical activity in Woodbury County.

During the first year of the grant, Drent worked with the Moville and Sergeant Bluff-Luton school districts to create safe routes to school and the city councils to adopt complete streets resolutions.

"The overall goal is to really increase opportunities for physical activity for those kids and to get them to and from school safely," she said.

In all four of the communities, Drent conducted walkability assessments to gauge the condition of sidewalks and identify the speed limits along school walking routes and missing signage at school crossings.

(Curb ramps) are also really nice for parents with strollers or young kids who are learning how to bike-ride.

Last May, DeStigter said students who walked or rode a bike to school for 10 days straight were entered in a drawing to win a Fitbit activity tracker.

A bike rodeo on April 19 gave 28 students the opportunity to have their bikes checked and helmets fitted, while learning and practicing safe bicycle riding on a course marked by tennis balls, cones and traffic signage.