HILLSBOROUGH COUNTY, Fla. — With Tampa Bay Area students back to class for a new school year, parents may also notice safety changes to help improve conditions for walkers and bikers around schools in Hillsborough County.
Christy Turner’s daughter, Azori, loves school, though Turner will tell you crossing from Robles Elementary off Sligh Avenue in Tampa wasn't always the easiest.
“You got people just doing what they want to do. Cutting across traffic, all that. They barely stop for the kids,” said Turner.
Now it looks a little different thanks to a few improvements.
It's part of the Safe Routes to School program through Hillsborough County.
“We have looked at the school for improvements for walking and bicycling to school,” said Abigail Flores, Hillsborough County’s Safety and Mobility Manager. “What that involves is we actually put ourselves in the shoes of the students and walked the routes that the students are walking, and we ask ourselves what can we do to improve these walking routes?"
Flores said they put plastic delineators around the marked crosswalk, creating what they call a pedestrian refuge.
After concerns over speeding, Flores said they put delineators on the side of the road, which gives drivers the feeling of being squeezed which tends to slow drivers down.
There are other changes too.
"We put object markers to prohibit parking on these grass shoulders because parking on these shoulders was a dangerous situation for students to be offloading and getting into vehicles,” said Flores.
With the program, Flores explained the county evaluated all schools in Hillsborough County for a few factors, like exposure to traffic and historical crashes, ranked them based on those factors, and then they go down the list, addressing a handful of schools a year.
“We're studying them, coming back with a project that's quickly implementable, studying it, and then coming back with a more robust project after that,” said Flores.
They’re small steps parents hope make a big difference with a safer path to and from school.
“It's nice. I'm glad that they did it. Made it a little safer for the kids,” said Turner.
