RAPID CITY - With a
new state grant in hand, Rapid City can finally begin a pedestrian
safety awareness campaign that was one of the goals of the
three-year-old Safe Streets Initiative.
The city formed a
Safe Streets task force in late 2004 following a public outcry over
an accident that severely injured a boy trying to cross Fifth
Street.
The task force
spent the next two years reviewing pedestrian crossings, speed
limits near school zones and residential neighborhoods, traffic
signals and warning lights.
Those efforts
played a key role in the city's decision to allocate nearly $1
million combined to buy additional school zone flashers and upgrade
traffic signals with LED lights, and to hire a traffic engineer to
provide expertise to traffic safety decisions.
But one task left
unfinished was to implement a comprehensive public awareness
campaign to educate people about driver and pedestrian
safety.
Alderman Malcom
Chapman, the task force chairman, announced on Wednesday that the
city has received a highway safety task grant from the South Dakota
Department of Public Safety.
The grant provides
$69,700 spread over the next three years for the education campaign
titled "Safety is a Two-way Street."
"It's the
responsibility of those who are out walking, jogging, riding that
are not in vehicles to be aware, just as it is the responsibility
of those of us who are driving to be aware. It puts the onus on all
of us to be more aware," Chapman said.
Chapman said the
task force worked with the Marketing Managers of Rapid City, a
local professional organization that donated its time, to create an
awareness campaign two years ago but could not find funding for the
effort.
The grant will
allow the city to use $21,200 this year to start implementing the
campaign, probably sometime in September.
Chapman anticipates
media advertising, public service announcements and working with
the school system to send letters to parents of school-age children
with safety tips and messages. There's even money for a costume for
a frog character that would engage students during assemblies, he
said.
He said the process
of creating those messages are still under way, but overall he
believes even as little as imprinting the campaign's slogan,
"Safety is a Two-way Street," will go a long way toward reminding
people to be aware of others when on the street.
Chapman said he
found himself becoming more aware and conscious of his driving
habits due to all the discussion that arose from the accident three
years ago. He found himself becoming more "safety
aware."
"That's the biggest
thing. We create awareness about these issues just the more we talk
about it and talk about it," he said. "The crash rate possibly goes
down just because we're talking and thinking about it
more."
Contact Scott Aust
at 394-8415, or scott.aust@rapidcityjournal.com
