On February 18, Associate Policy Director Sarah Sample submitted written testimony to the Education, Energy, and the Environment Committee in opposition to SB 158 – Counties – Construction of Sidewalks and Crosswalks – Safe Alternative Routes to Public Schools.
While well-intentioned, this bill would place a costly mandate on county governments to carry out new state policies to create sidewalks and crosswalks as alternative routes for all public-school students. MACo does not raise policy objections to the bill’s goal of ensuring safe routes for students – county concerns are merely practical and cost-driven.
As drafted, SB 158 would shift responsibility to counties for infrastructure decisions that may involve municipal or State-owned roads, creating an unfunded and impractical mandate for local governments without providing funding or accounting for local geographic, legal, and logistical constraints.
Furthermore, the one-size-fits-all mandate of SB 158 simply does not
fit the transportation and geographic realities of Maryland counties. Counties – and schools – face diverse geographic challenges, transportation laws (like rights-of-way), and community characteristics that would make it difficult, if not impossible, to apply SB 158 to all 24 jurisdictions.
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