FAIRHOPE, Ala. — The Pedestrian and Bike Trails Committee met for the first time this week as part of the Planning and Zoning Commission’s efforts to implement the city’s Comprehensive Plan.

“We’re trying to be faithful to the Comprehensive Plan and its timelines,” said Carol Wilson, commission chairwoman, who was selected Wednesday to also chair the committee’s work. “We’re supposed to do certain things by certain times. We’re not snowed under by new development right now, so we thought this would be a good time to thoughtfully consider what should be our plan of action.”

The Comprehensive Plan, first developed in 2000 and revised in 2006, sets out a number of specific strategies and implementation timelines, organized by nine categories. The transportation section lists 10 strategies, five of which specifically mention pedestrian and bike plans. The strategies are given timelines ranging from short-term (0-2 years), medium-term (2-5 years), to long-term (5+ years) and ongoing.

Those pedestrian and bike plan strategies and their timelines are set out as follows in the Comprehensive Plan:

• Incorporate regional bicycle needs into a future thoroughfare plan (short-term).

• Insure that pedestrian circulation plans are included with all plat applications, providing at least the same frequency and scale of connectivity as the street designs (ongoing).

• Review all site development plans for pedestrian circulation that integrates with the block- and neighborhood-scale circulation system (ongoing).

• Consider appropriate alternate connectivity for bicycle and pedestrian connections in any circumstance where disconnections of the street system are proposed (ongoing).

• Conduct a citywide bicycle and pedestrian facility assessment to identify areas where new facilities are needed or areas where existing facilities may require maintenance within the next 5 years (medium-term).

At the start of Wednesday’s meeting, Jonathan Smith, planning and building director, displayed a large map of the city with all sidewalks identified on it.

“We’ve recently done an assessment of city sidewalks,” Smith said. “Our staff went out and did a hands-on assessment to help us start looking at what we have.”

Smith said the map might be reduced to a smaller size for use by committee members and the general public.

The Pedestrian and Bike Trails Committee, established by the Planning and Zoning Committee, consists of the following members: Wilson, Bob Clark (of the commission), Smith, Jennifer Fidler (public works director), Mike McPherson (Baldwin County Trailblazers director), and Will Mastin (BCT board member). Smith said a member of the Smart Coast group, several members of which attended the Wednesday meeting, might be appointed to the group by its next meeting (scheduled for March 11).

“I think the meeting went very well and was very productive,” Smith said Thursday. “We identified four major issues pertaining to pedestrian connectivity, and we discussed possible grant opportunities to help fund future pedestrian connectivity endeavors. The four major issues identified are: pedestrian networks for children to walk safely to school; neighborhood pedestrian connectivity on a citywide scale; improving pedestrian networks to major employers within the city; and improving pedestrian networks from neighborhoods down to Mobile Bay.”

Charlene Lee, of the local nonprofit group Smart Coast, said her group has helped organize a program now in its fourth month for schoolchildren to walk to all three Fairhope lower-grade schools. Parents and children meet at three locations on the first Friday of each month at 7:15 a.m. and then walk from there to Fairhope Elementary, Fairhope Intermediate and Fairhope K-1 Center from Big Lots, First Baptist Church and the Civic Center.

“It’s a lot of fun for everyone involved,” Lee said. “We will continue to develop the program and identify more safe routes to schools in Fairhope.”

Smart Coast did a survey last year that showed interest in having at least a monthly program for walking to schools, she said.

During the past four months, the following numbers of schoolchildren have participated in the program, she said: November (150); December (143); January (109); and February (157).

“Walking to school promotes safety, health, concern for the environment, a sense of community and physical activity among children,” according to a news release of the Alabama Department Transportation issued last September.

ALDOT administers the state’s federally funded Safe Routes to School program, which encourages and enables children in grades K-8, including those with disabilities, to walk and bicycle to school, according to an ALDOT report about the program.

“(The program) makes walking and bicycling to school safe and more appealing and facilitates the planning, development and implementation of projects that will improve safety and reduce traffic, fuel consumption and air pollution in the vicinity of schools,” the ALDOT report states. “The program funds infrastructure project improvements within a two-mile radius of K-8 school. Encouragement, promotional, training and enforcement are other eligible activities offered through (the program).”

The program is 100 percent federally funded, according to ALDOT.

Three Baldwin County cities and communities will receive funding through the program during the next fiscal year, said Bill Luckerson, coordinator of the Alabama Safe Routes to School program at ALDOT.

“For this year, Gulf Shores, Summerdale and Daphne will receive funding,” Luckerson said. “The program makes a community much more walkable. It also helps a community support alternative modes of transportation and provides a way for communities to provide input into the planning process.”

During the last fiscal year, the Baldwin County Commission received funding through the program to build a sidewalk just east of the Fairhope city limits that will provide a way for schoolchildren to walk to the new Fairhope Middle School.

“The grant award is for 5-foot-wide concrete sidewalk that runs 4,479 feet,” said Alainna Elliott, BCC grants coordinator. “When we were developing the proposal, we heard from so many people in the area requesting a sidewalk there. That was one of the reasons we requested that project.”

Elliott said they expect to start construction within the next year after permits are received from ALDOT and the project is put out to bid.

“The sidewalk will run from Spring Run Drive to Twin Beech Road on Boothe Road,” she said.

A day-long training course for the Alabama Safe Routes to School Program will occur on March 31 in Birmingham, Luckerson said.

The county is administering the current pedestrian school project east of the city limits, but Luckerson said funds may still be available next year for other projects by cities that have not yet been funded.

“So, we should look into the Safe Routes for School program and assess what kind of plan we need to have in place,” Wilson said at Wednesday’s meeting. “There is apparently money still available, but it won’t be there forever. This would help us to have less cars dropping kids off at schools.”

For more information, about the First Friday Walk to School program, contact Charlene Lee at Smart Coast at 928-2309 or info@smartcoast.org.

For more information about the Alabama Safe Routes to School Program, visit www.dot.state.al.us or call (334) 353-6446.