I LOVE to watch a good teacher in action; I was glad to arrive early and watch Mr Huss for about 10 minutes before he took a group of students on a walking field trip so I could use his classroom to teach about pedestrian and crosswalk safety.

Mr. Huss organized an excellent and simple solution to a problem at Ione Elementary School. The only road to the school is narrow with no parking along the sides and a circular drop-off in front of the office. There’s very limited parking on school grounds, many staff double park to fit everyone in. The traffic back-up is terrible at times, but especially in the mornings. Mr Huss organized a team of 5th grade students to arrive early, set up stations along the circular drop-off, open car doors, greet students and parents, and generally move everyone along more efficiently. It worked beautifully with the side benefit of tardies being reduced to almost zero. And I had the pleasure of working with a great group of kids who knew almost everything already, but continued to be eager learners.

This was my second trip in two days to Placerville. Yesterday I met with Miha Tomuta from WALKSacramento and Alyson Fox, a Sierra Elementary staff member. Alyson and I are going to do an intensive 7-week-long bicycle club beginning April 7.

Today, however, the task was to learn how to do walk auduts. This is the very first step a school or community takes in order to remove the barriers to walking and bicycling to/from school. Also participating today were people from the California Department of Health and the Health Education Council who are preparing to conduct walk audits in Sacramento City School District and TRUSD. Satellite map of the area around Sierra Elementary:

This crosswalk leads to a cliff on the other side:

Cracked pavement and dangerous storm grate:

Blind corner and missing roadway lines:

A one-way one-lane road:

A natural pathway created by local users: