Thank you so much for your support and interest in elevating school site traffic safety and accelerating the walk and bike-ability of our community, realized by attending our first Safe Routes to School Working Group meeting last week. This meeting was a great first chance to join together our partner schools, Districts, the Sherriff’s Office, City reps and others to work toward identifying common goals to put into action in the near term through this collaboration. We are thrilled that school site leaders from each of our six pilot schools were able to join us from the Principals Office, School Site Council, PTAs, and the broader parent community to learn more about regional Safe Routes initiatives and ongoing related City infrastructure projects and share insights on what should comprise our future scope of work. Three cheers for each of you for sharing your valuable time and initial ideas. We are so grateful to have you as partners!
Our first meeting agenda was dominated by laying the groundwork for future activities focused on student education and encouragement programs to increase active transportation during commutes to and from school (e.g. walking, biking, scootering, skating). This was shaped through presentations from our “experts in residence,” (e.g. the Public Health Department Safe Routes to School Coordinator, Sherriff’s Office School Resource Officers, Walk/Bike Cupertino Representatives, and the City’s Senior Traffic Engineer). As promised, all meeting materials have been warehoused for your future reference and use on the City’s newest webpage: www.cupertino.org/saferoutes.
We mentioned that this presentation-based format was unique to the first meeting and that our goal is to create active working groups to prioritize campus and adjacent roadway/sidewalk programs under your guidance. To customize this approach, we’ve prepared a survey to learn more about your priorities and capacities to support this endeavor moving forward. Please take about 5-10 minutes to complete xxxx (redacted) so we can best gauge our next steps, learn your availability, and ensure alignment with your vision for our group.
Many, many thanks again for your time and talents to mobilize (pun intended!) active transportation programs and accelerate (again J) traffic safety around our schools, particularly during the busiest time of year (graduation, finals, assessments, OH DEAR J!). This work will not be possible without your energy and we look forward to designing a program with you in the very near term to launch just in time for Back 2 School! Should you have any additional feedback to share, not covered by our survey, please feel free (anytime!) to send a note to saferoutes@cupertino.org. Until our next meeting!
Erin M. Cooke
Assistant to the City Manager & Sustainability Manager
City of Cupertino | 10300 Torre Avenue |Cupertino, CA 95014
408.777.7603 | fax: 408.777.3366 | erinc@cupertino.org | cupertino.org/green