In bold purple letters at the bottom of the poster was the statement, WE ALL DESERVE TO BE SAFE. The fact that a group of 6th graders at Rosa Parks had adopted that sentiment was in itself reason to believe our project had been a success. This month the three 6th grade classes at Rosa Parks in North Portland made community and traffic safety presentations to a panel of community members and decision makers that included a PDOT traffic engineer, Housing Authority representatives from the surrounding New Columbia development, and a neighborhood advocate. The projects ranged from an analysis of what should be done with an empty gravel lot owned by the Housing Authority, to how to improve safety at a high pedestrian traffic intersection in the neighborhood, and how to solve the problem of auto congestions in front of the school at pick-up and drop-off times.
The presentations followed several weeks of work on the projects. The students started out looking at graphs of the mode split of students traveling to schools. They learned how to use neighborhood street maps and adopt a geographical vocabulary that would make their points of concern understandable to decision makers outside of their neighborhood. They identified the problems they saw when navigating their neighborhood as pedestrians, cyclists, and transit users, and grappled with the difficult questions regarding who was responsible for existing problems, who could help implement solutions, and what the obstacles might be.
The format we followed for working on the projects was not unlike that used in the PSU Traffic and Transportation class that is opened to community activists each year. I passed on to the 6th graders the same advice I got in class at PSU, “You generally need to be told ‘no’ at least three times before you will see a solution realized.†The panelists who heard the 6th graders’ articulate and well thought-out presentations didn’t give them any flat-out “no’s,†but they didn’t promise any solutions either. The challenge now will be to maintain the community momentum for seeking improved community and traffic safety until those students actually see some changes made.
