Students' Dream for Seven Springs Middle Sidewalks About to Materialize

Zoe Pappas and Danielle Kuehner were in eighth grade at Seven Springs Middle School in Trinity when they and another student led a campaign to get sidewalks added to Little Road.

It was the 2008-09 school year, and there were no sidewalks on the section of  Little Road near the school or on nearby Mitchell Boulevard.

Pappas, Kuehner and Chelsi Mackin, all students in a leadership class, expressed their desire for the safety measure on Little to Pasco County officials. Their teacher, Cindy Tehan, said they had also wanted the sidewalks to extend onto Mitchell Boulevard.

The students were later told that funding was being sought for the project.

Fast forward to January 2012. Kuehner, Pappas and Mackin are now in the 11th grade at adjoining Mitchell High School, and the sidewalks still haven't been constructed. 

All that will soon change. Prep work for construction on a shared-use path, which is wider than a sidewalk to accommodate bicycles as well as pedestrians, will begin this week on Little. Work started earlier this month on Mitchell to install a path on that road as part of the same project.

Work is expected to be completed on both Little Road and Mitchell Boulevard by mid-June.

“I think it will be nice to see something happen before we graduate,” Kuehner said. The students in the class made “something big happen,” she said. “Something everybody will use.”

Deborah Bolduc, the county's project administrator for engineering, said prep work for construction of the 8-foot wide path on Little is scheduled to begin on Thursday.

The path, to be located on the west side of road, will span south from the intersection area of State Road 54 and Little to the intersection of Little and Trinity Boulevard, covering about 3,200 feet. 

The county started prep work a week ago on Mitchell Boulevard for a different section of the same project. In this section, a shared-use path will be installed on the south side of Mitchell, spanning from the intersection area of Mitchell Boulevard and Little Road to Trinity Oaks Elementary.

The project will also include "installation of pedestrian signals at four existing signals and installation of pavement markings for crosswalks at unsignalized side streets," Bolduc said.

Kuehner, Pappas and Mackin were in the Lead the Pack elective taught at Seven Springs Middle by Tehan. They started the effort to get sidewalks on Little Road in late 2008. The three students had noticed that their classmates had to walk in the grass on the side of the road to get to shopping centers and neighborhoods.

They asked for assistance from State Sen. Mike Fasano, R-New Port Richey. He came to the class and advised them it was a county issue, and he wrote letter to the county in support of their efforts.

In 2009, the three went to a meeting of the Pasco County Metropolitan Planning Organization, which consists of county commissioners and representatives from municipalities.

Progress came bit by bit.

The Florida Department of Transportation approved funding for the project during the 2010 fiscal year. It requested money from the federal Safe Routes to Schools program to pay for the effort.

The county commission approved a planning agreement on Nov. 16, 2010, that authorized officials to move forward with the design and construction.

Then the project hit delays, which Tehan said were related to the cost of the project, and construction didn't happen.

On Jan. 19, 2011, 15-year-old Mitchell High student Cierra Mamonoff .

Pappas said that she thinks because of that students started paying more attention to needs for safety improvements on Little.

“It did bring the subject up again,” Tehan said.

At the beginning of the current school year, Pappas spoke to Tehan about the project. Tehan asked the current Lead the Pack class if anyone would pick up the torch on the effort.

Eighth graders Luccas Borges and Matthew Sandoval volunteered.

“This is our last year at Seven Springs,” Borges said, “so it feels good to give something back to the school.”'

The two received about 520 student signatures on a petition about the project in a day. They went to the County Commission on Dec. 6 to pressure commissioners to give them a timeline on the project. Bolduc reportedly told them the work was close to starting. The project was bid out the month before to Ash Engineering.

The Suncoast News reported the project is receiving $760,248 from the Florida Department of Transportation.

Tehan said she is "really very proud" of the students.

And what does Pappas want others to know about the students' experience?

“If you want something and express it to someone, they’re going to listen,” she said. “We proved that.”