The city of Montague is pursuing a Safe Routes to School grant that, if approved, would fund improvements and additions to the city’s sidewalk infrastructure.
The next step in that process is conducting a walking/biking audit to assess the safety of the routes Montague students take to school. The audit is scheduled to take place Monday, March 25 from 4 to 6 p.m., with a rain date of Tuesday, March 26. The audit will include small groups walking six to eight blocks near Oehrli Elementary School and identifying potential safety hazards, followed by a group discussion.
The Safe Routes to School program is a federal one, said school director of business affairs Stacey Brown. The grants are given to municipalities, not school districts, but the Montague district is collaborating with the city on the initiative. Brown said the district’s principals, city manager Jeff Auch and other city representatives will be part of the walking audit. (An attempt to reach Auch for further comment was unsuccessful.)
“We will conduct audits for both our elementary and secondary students,” Brown said. “What kind of barriers are there? What kind of safety issues are there that would need to be improved to make their travel to and from school more enjoyable and safer? From there, our grant coordinator will take all that information and work with the city on the next steps.”
The city is very early in what will be a long process. If all goes as planned, Brown said, sidewalk construction would begin in summer 2026. The grants can be for up to $300,000 per school building, so for Montague, which has four (the area childhood center plus elementary, middle and high schools), the maximum grant award for the city would be $1.2 million.
“It is quite a lengthy process,” Brown said. “After the walking audit, you’ll get engineers and a whole bunch of other Michigan departments involved (regarding) ADA compliance and a whole slew of things.”
Whatever the city’s initial ideas are for the potential grant money, Brown noted they would have to mesh with the findings of the audit to determine the next steps, should the city be awarded money.
“We’re looking to see what part of our routes are conducive to having students walk to school right now, and what sidewalks produce barriers for students who want to walk or bike to school, and improving those barriers with these grant funds,” Brown said. “(We want) to make our walking and biking routes to school safer and more user-friendly for all students.”
The first step towards this grant was taken last fall, when the school district sent out an email survey to parents in the district asking for information about the way their children travel to school. Brown said the data was collected “behind the scenes” and the district has not been made privy to the results.
Brown said feedback from parents, as far as she knows, was not a major factor regarding the city pursuing the grant.
“To my knowledge, we didn’t hear a lot of feedback from parents regarding walkability and things of that sort,” Brown said. “I don’t know what spurred the city to go forward with this. It may have been just a great opportunity to improve our sidewalk infrastructure.”
