From the Westchester Elementary School Leadership Committee…
Westchester Elementary School had its first “Walk & Roll to School” event on Friday, September 11. The “Walk & Roll” program has been a popular way for students and parents to foster a sense of community, walkability, fitness, and conservation. This “Walk & Roll” will look very different from those in the past—students and parents will carry bright, yellow caution flags. Westchester has provided the flags due to an increase in traffic fatalities and accidents along Scott Boulevard, which fronts the school. “It is our hope that the flags will not only increase the visibility and safety of our students and parents, but also raise awareness about the dangerous traffic conditions along Scott,” said Kimberly Head Amos, the head of Westchester’s School Leadership Team (SLT) Safety
Committee.
The Safety Committee has been meeting for over a year to discuss improvements to the traffic and pedestrian conditions along Scott as well as the surrounding surface streets and intersections. Committee members have met with city and state authorities as well as various community groups in an effort to make this part of Decatur safer and more pedestrian friendly for everyone. “The officials with whom we have met—and there have been many—all want to help us achieve our goal. Unfortunately, there is a lot of red tape and budget concerns around the issue. The flags are our way to provide an immediate impact while we continue to push for change,” commented Rachel Cogburn, a committee lead on inter-agency planning and cooperation.
The growing congestion on the streets of the metro area is a current problem which needs a long-term solution. This has led to creative involvement on the part of community and school groups, such as the efforts by the Westchester Elementary School’s Safety Committee. Drivers should slow down and drive carefully when they see these yellow flags; people’s safety and lives depend on it.
Great work, Westchester SLT and families!
Interesting.
International Walk and Roll Day is not September 11 and I can’t find any other CofD school participating but Westchester decides to promote walkability and the political activism that is associated with this idea today of all days.
The only comment I can add is redundant but I can’t resist: Interesting.
Chris, not sure what you are implying?
Your implication that Westchester’s Walk and Roll to School event dishonors 9/11 is disheartening and divisive.
The event was timed with the school’s first Community Circle of the year. I was moved to tears to hear tiny Americans recite the Pledge of Allegiance, and the moment of silence and music that followed was life affirming on a difficult day.
Of course, congestion would not be better with the probable supposed solutions. Why not build a pedestrian bridge at Coventry? Besides those in the neighborhood & those that use the school do not want to bear the cost? Why are schools placed in such poor positions in the first place? Time & time again schools are put on major roads that have higher speeds. Then, people complain that the speeds are too high? Why are the proposed solutions always about putting on other people, instead of utilizing what is already in the neighborhood? The proposed {& ongoing} plans for Decatur will offer stagnation.
What he meant to say was “when I was your age, we used to dodge cars walking to school, uphill both ways”.
Thanks TinMan but no, I didn’t walk miles or dodge cars while walking to school back in the day but unlike most of the people living here now, I grew up in Decatur and walked to and from school everyday. My family lived on Ponce deLeon Place and my siblings and I walked to Saint Thomas More school. Much of this was out of necessity. My father, Joseph Wilson Billingsley, was a DuPont employee and spent much of the week driving the one and only family vehicle throughout the south as an industrial chemist. My mom, Loretta Billingsley, did not learn to drive until necessity forced her to do so around 1964. Our daily walks to school were different from today. We all carried our paper sacked lunches in one hand and our books and folders in the other. I do not recall any parents walking to school with their children. We were well trained to cross at the crosswalks, obey the traffic signals and avoid horseplay. Maybe it was fear of the nuns, who would punish us with a whack of the clicker if we misbehaved on the way to school or our parents, who would punish us even more upon arrival at home but whatever the reasons, walking to and from school everyday was no big deal. And I don’t recall any traffic accidents involving school age pedestrians.
But there were two memorable walking events in Billingsley lore that I would like to add. Walking to STM from Ponce Place required us to go past Ponce deLeon Elementary school (where the Decatur post office is today). The tension that existed between STM and Ponce school had little to do with the public school/private school rivalry that exists today between Decatur High and Paideia. No. This was one aspect of a dirty little secret in Decatur history that involved hatred of Catholics moving in after World War II. Now I’m sure the older STM boys gave it to the Ponce kids as good as they got but what I recall is being bullied, pushed and yelled at simply because I was a Catholic kid. One day, after being harassed by one kid in particular, I told my older sister Roseann about being pushed out of the sidewalk. Roseann was five years older than me so I must have been in the second or third grade. They next day, Roseann walked home with me and as we approached Water Street (the boundary between the two schools), I told her, “See that guy on the left. That’s him.” I followed my sister as she went through the Ponce kids and with a quick upper body twitch, she catapulted the bully into the street. That boy never bothered me again.
There was another event that was a little more serious. I remember being in first grade and it was early spring. Apparently I had a bad habit of never doing my homework and sometimes, when the teacher/nun became frustrated (there were thirty five students in my first grade), she would order me to “Go get your sister Jane. I want to talk to her.). Jane Billingsley (Hoffman) was in the eighth grade and I had to walk ALL BY MYSELF out of the lower building and, after climbing 15 thousand stairs, interrupt her class and return with her to listen to the nun explain my many faults. AND DID I TELL YOU I WAS IN THE FIRST FRICKIN’ GRADE!!! Well one afternoon, I decided I wasn’t going to put up with this anymore so I just walked out of the building, past the Ponce school, Sharion Carpets, and down Ponce Place towards home. Before arriving, I realized I was in serious trouble so I stopped by the Leiphart Chevrolet garage on Ponce Place and sat down on the large gas meter (which had something like a seat on top of it) and started crying. I don’t recall how long I was there, maybe fifteen minutes or an hour but during that time, I saw my uncle, aunt and my mom fly by in a convertible. A few minutes later, here they come again in the opposite direction but this time, the car screeched to a halt. My runaway from elementary school was over. What happened next well, I don’t recall but for some reason, there was no punishment.
Years later, I retold this story to my mom and wife Mary and then learned “the rest of the story”. What I had completely forgotten about was that my father had recently died and everyone was worried about my mom and her eight children. Mom told me that I had taken the death of father hard and she was worried. So when she received a call from STM that I was missing she had my Uncle Ted and her sister drive to school for an explanation. She was told that someone had seen me walking towards the Ponce school. Thinking I had walked home, they got back in the car, raced past Sharions and Leipharts and somehow noticed the little boy sitting on the gas meter. Even today, I marvel how my mom kept it together, losing her husband suddenly and facing the reality of raising eight kids and then, one of her children is missing from school. Thank goodness she was one tough lady.
Stranger still is that my own son, after being bullied at a system wide fifth grade band practice at Westchester elementary, decided he wasn’t going to take it anymore so he just left and started walking home. Luckily he only got as far as the Clairemont/Ponce light when a teacher and a few of his Clairemont friends convinced him to come back.
I guess he gets it from his hard-headed Dad!
We may have something in common, Chris. Wasn’t STM run by The Sisters of Notre Dame de Namur? They founded my college, Trinity College in Washington, DC, and taught there when I was a student.
And I enjoyed your story, pobrecito.
I guess everyone deserves their 15 minutes of fame – as long as it isn’t on September 11.
Peter, I was once beat up on this blog for suggesting that just because John Lewis did great things during the civil rights era does not make him a great congressman or worthy of our vote. People didn’t like that (though I stand by it). Well using those folks line of reasoning, Chris has done more for this community than you and I will ever do…combined. I certainly understand the frustration at some of his hit & run posts, but I think he deserves a little more leeway before getting the kind of snarky remarks you and Steve have posted here.
Mr. B. is a complex guy for sure. I still cannot reconcile some of the great things he did for specific students and DHS as a whole with some of his comments on this blog. I’m going with actions speak louder than words.
I disagree, whatever he has done, most of his deserve the snark they get. And the occasional TL;DR.
Thanks YaYa. I did not mean to imply much of anything. The event was interesting to me and very little else. However there are those in Decatur that may question the appropriateness of sponsoring a walk and roll day on the fourteenth anniversary of September 11. Consider for example, the lasting effect of December 7th on the people of Decatur. Our city lost more boys during World War II than any other municipality in DeKalb County. I’m sure that our schools held ceremonies for years marking that terrible day but here in Decatur, an elementary school promotes walk and roll on September 11 when the memory of that day is still fresh. Some Decatur voters may wonder why a school Leadership Team, an elected body associated with the school board, would encourage teachers, parents and children to promote a specific political solution with various government agencies. A handful of Decatur taxpayers may notice that all the flags used for this event are the same. It is possible that parents used their own money to purchase the flags but if the school purchased the flags well, that’s another story. And there might be one or two citizens that question the bias of the post. There is very little evidence that Scott Boulevard is anymore dangerous today than it was thirty years ago. Finally there might be one person in Decatur that questions the sanity of the organizers. 99.99999% of Decatur residents may believe that good intentions keep children safe but good law enforcement, especially the presence of police officers during school hours, will do more good than hope, flags and bikes.
But I don’t ask these questions. Since I’m on my way out of Decatur (I can’t say exactly when so don’t get your hopes up), it’s all about reconciliation for me. You may be interested to know that Dr. Edwards and I held hands yesterday during the DHS JROTC “September 11 Service Awards” as the two of us led the audience in singing “God Bless America”. It was for me, a beautiful experience but others might find it “interesting”.
I don’t see kids walking to school or attempting to improve safety as political or controversial no matter the day of the year. I have walked or run Scott Blvd a handful of times in the past 12 months and decided to change my route because it felt so incredibly unsafe. I can’t imagine what it would be like holding the hand of a small child or pushing a baby in a stroller. I welcome you to try walking 1-2 feet from traffic going 50+ mph. It might change your reaction to this story.
“but here in Decatur, an elementary school promotes walk and roll on September 11 when the memory of that day is still fresh”
If we here in America can’t do anything else on 9/11 except for remember 9/11/01, haven’t the terrorists won?
“If we here in America can’t do anything else on 9/11 except for remember 9/11/01, haven’t the terrorists won?”
+1 On the day in question (night actually), I had a great time– if a bit too much to drink–while celebrating the recent nuptials of a gay couple who’ve been together 22 years and got married last month. Those are exactly the kinds of freedoms the terrorists hate, or so I’ve been told.
Anything life-affirming, like being out and about in your community, seems especially appropriate on Sept. 11.
And why on Earth should any community have to endure a mammoth roadway with cars roaring past to get to somewhere else — now or thirty years ago? I’m glad we’re rethinking these things.
Westchester had its first community circle yesterday. The walk and roll event was tied to it. You and other concerned taxpayers can rest easy – some generous parents paid for the flags. I don’t see anything political about trying to make things safer for kids as they walk to school. The neighborhoods that are off of Scott are just as interested in making changes as the Westchester school community. My house backs up to Scott and, while I may not have the scientific data you require, I will say that in my experience over the past 13 years the traffic and the speeds have gotten worse. I also don’t see how this event in anyway dishonors the memory of 9/11. You suggest that this somehow overshadows it or that those that participated in it did nothing else the rest of the day to remember it? You’re right, I do find your post “interesting.”
Oh, and for the record, the flags cost $28…..
Dear Mr. Billingsley,
No disrespect but here are some facts. 1) The Walk and Rolls for Westchester are timed with our Community Circle days, the first one of the year being yesterday, September 11th. 2) During that same Community Circle our entire community at Westchester observed an extended time of silence to honor and remember the lives lost on September 11th…for many of our generation the single most impactful day of our lives. 3) The flags were purchased by a few individual parents that are concerned with safety. 4) This is a political issue, we are trying to raise awareness of the speeding issues on Scott which are well documented. Something like 3000 out of the 5000 tickets issued by COD last year were for traffic violations on Scott. The cars in question that were given tickets had to be going over the speed limit (40) by at least 10 miles. Many in this community are passionate about this issue because many of us were the first on the scene this June when a community member’s daughter was killed by a driver going over 100mph on Scott as she tried to turn out of our neighborhood onto Scott. So, yes, this is a political issue for many in our community seeking the help of our city, county and state officials (not easy) to help make this a safer route to school and in general help those that have to pull on to Scott out of our neighborhoods do so safely. I hope this helps clarify.
Sorry you spent so much time composing a thoughtful reply. His mind was made up long ago.
In Middlebury VT, Wall & Roll School days are on the first Wednesday of each month. Yellow pedestrian crosswalk flags were introduced in town at the busiest crosswalks in May 2014.
There are 2 speed limits on Scott. One is 40 mph. The speed limit around Westchester is 25 mph during school hours. It seems that drivers are much more wary of exceeding 25 mph during school hours than 40 mph during other times. Namely 25 mph means 25 but 40 doesn’t really mean 40. Why is that?
I think the perception of drivers on Scott is that 40mph (during non school hours) really means at least 50. What about 51-55mph? Perhaps the perception of a driver on Scott that is going this speed is that they are relatively safe (from a ticket) because they are surrounded by other drivers traveling at roughly the same speed. Anyone who knows this area understands that cars exceed 40 mph.
Of course DPD patrols the area, with 60% of traffic tickets coming from Scott. 60%.
So the point at which DPD intervenes on Scott results in 60% of traffic tickets for all of Decatur. It is this pattern of intervention that establishes terms of calculation that drivers must consider when deciding how fast to drive. So if 40 mph actually really means 50mph, any driver exceeding 50 mph on Scott should expect a ticket. This may translate into 75% of tickets coming from Scott and a new calculation by drivers when deciding how fast to drive on Scott. There has to be a change in the driver’s perception of their relative risk of getting a ticket if they exceed 40mph on Scott.
” Namely 25 mph means 25 but 40 doesn’t really mean 40. Why is that?”
Local police can ticket in a school zone for 1 MPH over the limit, but generally in other areas it has to be 10 mph. Only the Georgia State Patrol can ticket in non-school-zones for less tn 10 mph over the limit, with certain exceptions.
Thanks Steve, thought I read this information before, that’s the thinking of why 40 actually means 50 above
“any driver exceeding 50 mph on Scott should expect a ticket.”
51 mph = a speeding ticket, with this expectation for any driver on Scott