Safe Routes to School TODAY

Three of our board members attended the vigil for Andre Retana, the child who died crossing at El Camino and Grant. It broke our hearts to see Andre’s parents’ grief. No parent should have to suffer the death of their child, especially when that death was preventable. 

Mountain View adopted Vision Zero in 2019 and in a recent presentation, city staff stated one of Vision Zero’s key principles “the loss of life is unacceptable and often preventable.” Yet collision rates, and indeed the death toll on Mountain View streets, are as high as ever. Andre’s parents attended the latest Vision Zero meeting and pleaded that Andre’s death not be in vain. What will we do to protect our children? 

We have many dangerous streets and intersections. The City has focused on long-term goals and permanent infrastructure changes, which take many years to complete. Long-term changes need to be made, but we can, with the funding and support of our city and school district officials, immediately increase safety with short-term improvements such as:

  • Ensure that each child who bikes or walks to school has received appropriate, high-quality safety instruction. The life skills of bicycle safety are part of the standard primary school curriculum in bike-savvy places near and far such as Palo Alto and parts of Europe. With additional funding, Mountain View schools could bring in established programs designed to teach all kids good cycling habits by getting them onto bikes and practicing skills as part of mandatory Physical Education. In addition, the City could organize police-supervised ride-to-school practice events, as in years past.

  • Deploy more crossing guards during school commute hours at dangerous intersections to enforce safe behavior for all road users. Today the City is funding nine school crossing guards. They are seeking funding for an additional four in the next school year but this only brings the total up to 13. In comparison, Palo Alto has 25 crossing guards..

  • Update the City’s Safe Routes to School maps to include the full catchment area for each school and update to reflect the boundary changes from the 2019 redistricting. Identify the riskiest segments and areas that truly have no safe routes and prioritize and plan rapid improvements. 

  • Work with housing developments where children reside to ensure there is always at least one bicycle/pedestrian exit onto a quiet street.

  • Rapidly improve street safety by painting crosswalks, adding “No RIght on Red” at dangerous intersections, and installing pedestrian flags to help capture the attention of drivers. 

Our community must prioritize the safety of our children and provide the resources to adopt solutions like these now instead of years in the future. We cannot wait until more lives are lost to act. We, as a community, must step up to help drivers slow down and see our children, today.