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Show J. Judged the most hazardous route in Davis County, the area south of 1 300 North and west of Emerald in Layton is just one of 17 hazardous bus routes for school children. Hazardous school bus routes may mean new district buses By DONETA GATHERUM FARMINGTON When it comes to busing students along dangerous routes, a failing grade means success in acquiring bus transportation to school. Hazardous bus routes are found in areas of the county that would normally be within walking distance dis-tance to school (l'i miles for elementary students or two miles for secondary students) but are considered unsafe for walking because be-cause of special hazards such as heavy traffic, no sidewalks or wide shoulders, high speed limits or road width. While the State of Utah pays for bus transportation under most circumstances, cir-cumstances, there is no state funding fund-ing for hazardous routes. The Davis County Board of Education has to determine the hazardous routes and fund for transportation using their local tax revenues. Today there are 17 hazardous bus routes within the county. Most are found in the north end. The most hazardous route with a rating of .99 is in the East Layton Elementary area south of 1300 North and west of Emerald. The number two route in terms of safety safe-ty hazards is 1100 West near 1500 South in Woods Cross. The only hazardous route to be added to the list for 1988 is one at 1500 West 570 North in Clearfield. These students attend Holt Elementary. In order to give fair and equal treatment to all students, a rating system for hazardous bus routes was established in 1983. Forty routes received special busing at that time. Twenty-four of the original ori-ginal 40 routes have been eliminated elimin-ated because conditions have changed. Most notably, sidewalks have been built. In determining the hazardous routes for 1988, the school district asked Utah Highway Patrol Troopers Troop-ers Guy Berrett and Sgt. Richard Greenwood to use the computer and conduct a hazardous walking study for the district. A grading system from zero to four was used. Zero represented an "F" and four was an "A." Rating was based on road width (21 feet or less was 0), number of lanes (2 lands less than 1 1 feet was 0), road direction (east-west was worth one point and north-south ranked two points), foliage and view obstruction, speed limit (40 rated a 0), walking area (a three foot graded shoulder ranked 0) and number of vehicles on the road. Any road with more than five cars in a five minute period during the time students were walking to school could be considered hazardous. hazar-dous. All roads surveyed had heavier traffic than this safety maximum. max-imum. The highway patrolmen that did the survey took pictures, measured roads and walking areas and used a video camera to substantiate their findings. The information was placed into a computer data base so it could be sorted and ranked beginning be-ginning with the most hazardous and ending with the least. The district policy regarding adding new hazardous bus routes is a four-point process. First, a request re-quest to be bussed has to be received re-ceived at the district office. Next, a rating is applied to the route following follow-ing the procedure used to rate the hazardous routes already in place. Qualifying requests are recommended recom-mended to the administrators of the school district who pass the recommendations re-commendations onto the Board of Education for action. |