Walking Audit Jumpstarts Successful Grant Proposal

Therese Pasquier calls herself a “work-at-home mom,” but the benefits of her home-based efforts are felt throughout her Puyallup neighborhood.  Most recently, she has applied for a Safe Routes to School grant to improve the walk and bike route to Wildwood Park Elementary School.

Though they live just a few blocks away, Pasquier does not let her two sons walk this route by themselves.  “Wildwood Park Drive is treated as a pass-through street for those who don’t want to take the main road,” she says.  “Since the elementary school is set back from the road, people drive very fast.”

In 2002, a pedestrian was killed near the school by a hit and run driver.  This incident made Pasquier more aware of the traffic dangers facing her children when they walk.  Without a complete sidewalk network along Wildwood Park Drive, she will not let her fourth grade son walk or bike to school alone.  “He wants to bike to school, but I just can’t let him,” explains Pasquier.

When the Pierce County Health Department conducted a walking audit around the school with Feet First in March 2006, Pasquier was the PTA president of Wildwood Park Elementary School.  She believes the audit jumpstarted their eventually successful application process for a Safe Routes to School (SRtS) grant from the Washington State Department of Transportation.  “I knew that once the recommendations came out from the audit there would be things that we could do to really improve the safety of this area.”

Pasquier knows that it is not easy to change driver behavior, so she and her team have carefully planned to include law enforcement activity and infrastructure improvements along Wildwood Park Drive and the other 3 entrances to the school.

She already has an informal walking and carpool arrangement with a neighbor with whom she splits the responsibility of taking her kids to school.  Her hope is to have that arrangement evolve into the start of a Walking School Bus next year.  “Then I will let my kids bike and walk to school.  I want them to experience the same things I did when I was growing up, walking to school each day with friends.”

Therese Pasquier partnered with the Pierce County Health Department and the City of Puyallup to create a SRtS proposal that eventually ranked second out of 100 proposals. 

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