At Tuesday night’s Lawrence Township Council meeting, Lawrence Intermediate School’s (L.I.S.) 4th grade Gifted and Talented (G&T) Program students presented their suggestions to Township Manager Kevin Nerwinski and council members for improving pedestrian safety around the school. The suggestions presented were the result of surveys completed by more than 300 L.I.S. 4th grade students after participating in last year’s October 5th “Walk this Way” event. The goal of the program was to educate children, parents, and teachers about pedestrian safety which included teaching how to walk safely to and from school, and how to assess potentially hazardous walking conditions around the school.
“Walk this Way” was the local expression of International Walk to School Day. At the event, approximately 330 4th grade students walked along Eggerts Crossing Road, RT 206, and around L.I.S. with members of the Lawrence Township Police Department, the Trenton Thunder Mascot (Boomer), and employees of FedEx. After, the students completed a survey asking questions such as “Did the sidewalks end abruptly?”, “Were the sidewalks broken?”, “Were there bushes that got in the way of the walk?”, and “Did parked cars ever get in the way of your walk?”. G&T 4th grade students then used Google Sheets to tabulate and graph the survey data and then created a report of their findings.
The following suggestions were offered to the committee members in an effort to improve pedestrian safety: (1) fix broken sidewalks around L.I.S.; (2) make sure all sidewalks around L.I.S are connected; (3) clear bushes around the sidewalks; and (4) make more parking spots.
“This is a very complete report,” said Mayor David Maffei. “We have the suggestions that you’ve recommended and we will do something about it.”
Additionally, committee member Christopher Bobbitt said, “Thanks for doing the data because it helps us do our job.”
