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Middle-Schoolers Talk the Walk Before MPO

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By KLINT LOWRY | The Suncoast News

Published: February 21, 2009

NEW PORT RICHEY - Figuratively speaking, Danielle Kuehner, Chelsi Mackin and Zoe Pappas have been pounding the pavement while working on a school project.

The Seven Springs Middle School students are involved in their school's Lead the Pack Program, in which students develop and implement community service projects. The projects give students a taste of community involvement and adult responsibility.

For their project, Danielle, Chelsi and Zoe started with a simple desire, to see a sidewalk installed along the stretch of Little Road between S.R. 54 and Mitchell Boulevard so that students would be able to walk or ride their bikes to school or to go shopping. Their argument was straightforward enough; the challenge was putting their idea on the right bureaucratic path to becoming reality.

"They did a lot of phone calling of different government agencies to see who could help them," their teacher, Cindy Tehan said.

With a bit of guidance from state Sen. Mike Fasano, R-New Port Richey, the girls eventually found themselves where they needed to be on Feb. 12, as they stood before the Pasco Metropolitan Planning Organization. The MPO is the county's main transportation planning agency.

The girls were determined this would be more than just a courtesy call on the MPO. The girls had spent a good deal of time doing research so that once they had found the right people to talk to, they would have a strong case to present.

They prepared packets outlining their proposal. They had statistics from the Florida Department of Transportation regarding students' home-to-school commutes, more statistics regarding overall public transportation issues, an aerial schematic of the area that would be affected by their proposal and a newspaper article describing their efforts to date.

While the MPO members - county commissioners and representatives of Pasco cities - were impressed that three eighth-graders would be so thorough. One element of the presentation seriously caught their attention. The girls had looked into various building methods and produced a cost comparison. They found something the county officials were unfamiliar with, "rubber sidewalks." Made from recycled materials, the rubber version could be two-thirds cheaper than sidewalks made from concrete.

The board had a surprise for the girls in return. Prior to the meeting, Chelsi, Zoe and Danielle had submitted their proposal in writing. Unbeknownst to them, Bipin Parikh, the assistant county administrator for development services, had his staff do a preliminary study.

The analysis included a cost analysis and a schematic for an 8-foot-wide bike and pedestrian pathway that could be installed along the west side of Little Road by connecting existing bits of pavement.

Add to the reasons the girls presented for building the pathway, Parikh said, other developments in the area made the case even stronger. There was a general consensus this was a project with merit, and the next step would be to look for grants and other forms of funding to follow through with it.

As the MPO meeting concluded, the girls had to admit things went better than they expected.

"I didn't think they'd know right away," Danielle said. "I thought they'd say they'd think about it."

"We hadn't heard back from them at all, and we didn't know they had any schematics drawn up and everything," Chelsi added.

While nothing was set yet, they came away with a sense they had been taken seriously, that the project they initiated was now officially on the drawing board.

"At least they said that we'll be able to get the funding, hopefully," Zoe said, "and they already started with the schematics and stuff, so we're getting closer to what we want."

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