“Safe Route to School” Launches in Front of Congdon Park Elementary School

This pilot program will continue through the school year and the city will evaluate over the summer. 

DULUTH, Minn. – A pilot program is currently underway at Congdon Elementary School, working to making getting to school safer for kids.

The program called “Safe Routes to School” decreased the speed limit in front of the school to 20 miles per hour. The City of Duluth chose this location because of how busy the intersection gets.

“We installed the signs last week and we are going to study and evaluate the effectiveness of these signs. Will speeds slow down for that 20 miles per hour? We’re looking at how this works and how effective this is, how we can do this at other school sites around the city,” senior transportation planner for the City of Duluth James Gittemeier said.

Meanwhile for parents of students at Congdon Elementary, this has been a long time coming. And although it’s a start, they say they’re looking forward to seeing more changes to make things safer.

“We don’t want to wait for something bad to happen to get these in place. This is super important just to get the ball rolling with the rest of the city and the rest of the schools around Duluth. We just want our kids to get to school in a safe way,” parent Lindsay Ekstrom said.

This program will continue through the school year and the city will evaluate over the summer.