Students pushing for safer crossing

West Valley City School student Ben Wikle steps off a Spokane Transit Authority bus near his school each morning and prepares for a fight.

The 13-year-old has to battle his way across six lanes of traffic where busy one-way Mullan and Argonne roads intersect with Valleyway Avenue.

“Everyone is going to work, so it gets pretty hectic,” Wikle said.

There is one crosswalk at each Spokane Valley intersection, but the cars don’t stop and Wikle has to wait for a break in traffic.

“I don’t want to take my chances,” Wikle said. “It’s pretty dangerous.”

That’s why the eighth-grader signed up along with several other students at the West Valley middle school to ask the city of Spokane Valley to consider installing pedestrian-activated, lighted crosswalks on the roads.

The effort is one of 12 community service projects that students in the nontraditional school are working on through the school’s improved service learning program called City Way, funded by a $20,000 state grant.

“We just felt that people should be able to feel safe when they cross,” said student Robert Tombari, 14, who is leading the crosswalk effort. “It’s important to give something back.”

City School houses about 200 students in grades five to eight, and functions like a small city pairing academics with real world responsibility, like a city council and a court system.

Students have previously been involved in community service-oriented programs within the school and held “community days,” but this year students came up with a new plan that includes more proactive projects, said Tom Moore, the school’s principal.

“The service learning sort of evolved into ski days and roller-skating,” Moore said. “They have refocused their attention this year to applying some kind of academic learning to service in the community.”

In addition to the effort for a new crosswalk, students are working on issues like hunger and poverty, and with groups like SpokAnimal C.A.R.E, the Spokane Humane Society, and TATU, or Teens Against Tobacco Use.

“We never really had community service that was hands-on before,” said seventh-grader Lexie Hoffpauir. “Now we are out there.”

Hoffpauir was one of four students who attended a service-learning conference in Seattle this fall to learn more about making community service work in her school.

“Students learn that they can actually make a difference,” Hoffpauir, 13, said.

The students meet regularly to plan their projects, and put them into action once a month.

Tombari and his group have been working with a city traffic safety engineer, and plan to pitch a proposal for the crosswalks to the Spokane Valley City Council soon. Two similar crosswalks exist near Centennial Middle School and Broadway Elementary on Broadway Avenue, and on Mission Avenue near Mission Park. The city of Airway Heights added a pedestrian-activated crosswalk across U.S. Highway 2 in 2002.

Until a similar pedestrian-activated crosswalk is installed at Argonne and Valleyway, West Valley school officials have forbidden students from crossing at the intersection.

“About 20 kids have a reason to use it, but what we’ve done right now because it’s so dangerous is we’ve outlawed it. City School kids cannot cross there at this point,” Moore said.