Town receives $200K grant to provide safe school access

Concrete, bike racks and education

In what should make walking or biking to school safer for local students, the town of Crested Butte was awarded a huge state grant on Tuesday. The Colorado Department of Transportation is giving $207,782.84 to the town through its “Safe Routes To School” program. Most of the money will be used for a paved walking and biking path along Eighth Street.

“I am very excited and think this will help address some of the issues that are being talked about at the moment,” said grant writer Catherine Bogart, the administrative assistant at the Crested Butte Marshal’s Office. She said Martha Montano from the local group “Feet First” also helped prepare the grant, which will result in a path on the east side of town.
“Most of the money is focused on a concrete path that will accommodate pedestrians, bikers and wheelchairs along Eighth Street between Teocalli Avenue and the school,” she said. “The path will follow the green belt and have crosswalks and be a safe way for kids of all ages to get to school.”
Signs to inform vehicle drivers of crosswalk placement and their obligation to stop will also be purchased through the grant.
As part of the Crested Butte grant, some of the money will go toward bike racks for the school. Some of the money must be used for education of students to get them to use the safe route.
Bogart submitted the grant last December. CDOT awarded $1.7 million across the state for infrastructure projects such as the Crested Butte proposal.
“The grant has to go through the CDOT process,” Bogart said. “There will be a meeting with a CDOT engineer and we have to meet certain standards. We should have a signed agreement by the middle or end of summer. If we are lucky, the project could start at the end of the coming summer or in the spring of 2010.”