I also don’t remember Westchester in the mix. Some of the criteria for picking the schools had to do with the percentage of students on the free/reduced meal program, the volume of traffic near the school, and the number of students already walking/biking to school.

And thanks for the nice compliments about the SRTS program. I’m still championing it on all 3 levels – local, state & federal. I need to call out local Decatur resident Allison Adams who wrote most of the original GDOT proposal and played a big role in making the original grant happen. I have a nice photo of Allison and me receiving the resolution at a GDOT Board meeting and I have the framed resolution hanging up in my store on the wall behind the register. The document that started the Safe Routes To School movement in Georgia. Nice little bit of history.

Mrs Barnes did do a Walk to School event at Westchester, but it was never a Safe Routes to School (SRTS) pilot location. Around 2000, five of us sat down and wrote a proposal to the Ga DOT for a $400,000/4 year SRTS pilot project in 4 elementary schools – 2 in DeKalb & 2 in Gwinnett. They accepted our proposal and Clairemont was scheduled to be one of the DeKalb pilot schools.

Between the time GDOT accepted our proposal and we finally received the funds, Clairemont was reconfigured as a K-3 school. We were able to convince GDOT to let us “count” Clairemont & Glennwood as one location and away we went.

I’m proud to say that Decatur’s SRTS program is one of the longest running SRTS programs in the state and a statewide role model. Many of the practices and procedures featured in the current state SRTS program are a direct result of Decatur’s pioneering efforts.