City receives $399K in grants for Safe Routes to School plans

State grants totaling almost $400,000 will pay for sidewalk and safety improvements in the city of Lorain.

The city administration and Lorain County Public Health announced the grants for Lorain Connected, a committee made up of community members who developed the city’s Active Transportation Plan.

The money comes from the Ohio Department of Transportation’s Safe Routes to School program, which will pay for improvements scheduled for construction in 2021, 2022 and 2023.

“We’re excited that our ideas for continued improvement to create safer roads were selected,” said Lorain County Health Commissioner David Covell. “Many rely on walking and biking to get around the community each day.

“Traveling by foot or bike also increases physical activity levels, which is critical to prevent childhood obesity.”

During the past five years, the city of Lorain logged 89 crashes involving a bicycle rider or person walking.

Of those, four were fatal, according to data from ODOT’s Traffic Information Mapping System.

The health department received a $30,000 grant for programs to promote safe and healthy walking and biking in the city.

Those include Lorain City Schools’ Walk and Bike to School Days, the Girls in Gear bicycle repair training program and “walking school bus” days when students and parents walk in groups to the school buildings, said Kat Bray, health education specialist for Lorain

County Public Health.

The city received a $399,122 state grant to pay for sidewalk improvements around Lorain Schools’ Admiral King, Hawthorne and Garfield schools, said Mayor Jack Bradley.

“It is great to see how work on bicycle and pedestrian safety started small with an opportunity through local funding, but we are now being recognized on the state and national levels for the collective commitment to innovation with partners to improve the health and safety of our residents,” Bradley said. “As someone who loves to walk, having safe routes to travel is important to all of our citizens.”

The money will pay for sidewalk replacement, handicap-access ramps, crosswalk markings and new digital speed limit signs to warn drivers to slow down for school zones, he said.

“It’s always good when we can get some funding to improve the areas around the elementary schools,” Bradley said.

The award is at least the third Safe Routes to School grant for Lorain.

In summer 2021, a $185,553 grant will pay for new sidewalks on West 21st Street from Leavitt Road to Oakdale Avenue.

In 2022, a $399,122 grant will pay for sidewalk replacement on Oakdale Avenue from West 30th Street to West 17th Street and on 30th Street from Marshall

Avenue to Clinton Avenue, according to city plans.

Also next year, a $179,500 grant will cover 80 percent of the cost of a Washington Avenue bikeway stretching from Lorain High School to West Erie Avenue.

That money comes through the Congestion Mitigation and Air Quality program of the Northeast Ohio Areawide Coordinating Agency.

Since 2017, Lorain Connected and the active transportation plan partners have scored almost $1.5 million in grants to improve road safety for drivers, cyclists and walkers.

The plan makes recommendations for infrastructure improvements and educational programs for the next three years in Lorain.

ZACHARY SRNIS — THE MORNING JOURNAL FILE A group of students from Stevan Dohanos Elementary walk to school in October 2018. The city of Lorain and Lorain County Public Health this week announced grants worth more than $400,000 to promote and improve sidewalks for continuing efforts to promote walking and riding bicycles around the city.