Student Pedestrian Safety a Concern, Education Is Key

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RED BANK – Thomas Pagano, the interim superintendent of Red Bank Regional High School, is very concerned about his students’ safety and he intends to do something about it to address the matter through education.
And he’s not alone. Dena Russo, vice principal for the Red Bank Primary School is equally concerned and agrees education is key but she wants to see a lot more crosswalks and safe passages for cyclists on the west side of town.
“I worry,” Pagano acknowledged, noting as he drives to the Ridge Road regional high school in the mornings, “There are lines of traffic” going in out of the school property.
“There are students walking, too,” he observed. “I have noticed, of course, as our kids are walking many of them have their heads down, I guess, as they’re keyboarding, texting their friends.”
And that’s where the worry comes in, he said. “I think it’s a function of math, probability. When somebody walks down road X amount of times and X amount of times they’re not paying attention, one of those times something may occur,” he feared.
Pagano and Russo, took part in the April 17 Crossroads meeting of stakeholders convened by The Two River Times to address the challenges faced by pedestrians and cyclists in the Two River area and elaborated on their concerns in interviews this week.
As administrators for local schools, student safety is always a priority and both of these officials see opportunities to improve the situation.
Since the April 17 discussion, both have been giving this more thought. And in response, Pagano’s going to review health class curriculum and ask that it covers pedestrian safety for the high school students, as it’s regularly done for elementary and middle school classes. “That’s something to take a look at,” he said.
Compounding Pagano’s fears is his observation wherever he travels he finds impatient and inattentive drivers. “If a driver is impatient or a pedestrian is distracted, or vice versa,” he said, “that’s recipe for disaster.”
Russo, who lives on the east side of Red Bank and works on the west side at the primary school, located on River Street, sees differences in the two sides. Her observations have been that the east side seems to receive more attention for its crosswalks and sidewalks. “There just seems to be more beautification, I guess you would say,” she said.
While there have been infrastructure improvements on the west side, there continues to be areas where children and adults regularly walk and cross busy streets like Shrewsbury Avenue. “There really aren’t many designated areas,” with marked crosswalks and traffic signals, she observed. “You see people dodging in the road all the time.”
Russo would like to see flashing pedestrian crossing lights, like those installed on Maple Avenue, given many of the primary school’s 630 students live in the surrounding neighborhoods.
Another issue for the area children is the lack of parks offering a safe environment for play, she has observed. “Kids wind up playing in the streets,” and the threat that poses, she said.
Bicycles are very much part of the culture in the community, especially for the large Hispanic community. For them it’s transportation—with parents sometimes taking their children to school, riding on the back or handlebars. Given how widely bikes are used by adults and children, “For an area like this bike lanes would be appropriate,” Russo said
Accompanying that should be education, teaching children proper use and the rules of the roads, Russo added. That outreach might be better served by area churches, Russo believed, “because it is a trusting environment.”
– By John Burton