A community initiative that aims to address safety concerns in a fast-growing area that has seen multiple incidents and fatalities due to road infrastructure issues.
Saginaw, Fort Worth and the greater Tarrant County area have seen tremendous growth over the last several years with new homes, new schools, and new businesses, but our roads and sidewalks have not been expanded or improved to accommodate the significant growth we are experiencing. The existing roads and accompanying safety features are simply not adequate to serve our growing population.
Pillars
#Connect4Safety is an effort to connect the four pillars of a community – neighborhoods, cities, schools and community organizations – to create a united voice calling for safe passageways for pedestrians and motorists alike. We aim to bring our community together with the common goal of improving safety on our roads, streets, and sidewalks, ensuring a safe passageway for school children, improving the ability to walk and bike safely from home to resources in the community, and to have infrastructure that supports our vibrant, growing community.
Neighborhoods
Schools
Cities
Community Organizations
The Challenge
One of the greatest challenges we face in Northwest Tarrant County is the fact that our roads and passageways are simply not adequate to ensure connectivity or safety. There are very few sidewalks or crosswalks, and the area still has many poorly-lit roadways, and unsafe roads with potholes and divots that lack safety features like curbs or dividers to keep vehicles from crossing into oncoming traffic. These issues make it difficult to safely do something as essential as getting to and from work, school, community organizations and back home each day.
In the next five years, growth for our area will be substantial which means more students needing to get to and from school, and more families needing to safely leave their neighborhoods and travel to businesses and places of worship.
No sidewalks
Poorly-lit roadways
Inadequate space for pedestrians
#Connect4Safety is a partnership between neighborhoods, cities, schools and community organizations, all with the common goal of improving safety on our streets, roads and sidewalks. Our children and their families need a safer way to move about the community, and our elected officials are being called upon to ensure proper planning, more connectivity and safer passageways.
Eagle Mountain-Saginaw Independent School District
Eagle Mountain-Saginaw Independent School District aims to foster a culture of excellence that instills a passion for a lifetime of continuous achievement in every student. The school district proudly serves our community which has seen continued growth over the last several years. We are constantly planning to ensure we can accommodate enrollment growth to provide the best opportunities for every child in our schools. We are passionate about our students and are committed to working with city and county officials to address a number of infrastructure issues that have resulted in unacceptable injuries to students and preventable deaths.
A message from Superintendent
Jim F. Chadwell, Ed. D
Thank you for learning more about #Connect4Safety and for your willingness to partner with us to create solutions to the infrastructure challenges throughout our community. This is a somber topic. We have seen students killed and seriously injured after being struck by cars in this area, which is devastating. I passionately advocate for safer access for everyone in our community. While the circumstances of these accidents differ, they have one similarity: they all occurred where there are no sidewalks or safe passageways for students to walk in our community.
As an educator, there is no greater pain than to experience the death of a student. We are wired to care for our students, to nurture them, to protect them. This project was developed with that same purpose and focus – a desire to create a safer environment for our students and for our community at large.
We are looking for solutions to some of our greatest infrastructure-related challenges and we are looking for partners who are also committed to making this a safer community for everyone.
The City of Fort Worth May 2022 Bond Program was approved with 67% support and has $360 million in spending for streets and mobility-related projects. The bond takes steps toward addressing a variety of needs throughout the city and is a great step in the right direction and the strong support shows that these issues are important to members of our community. In addition, the City of Saginaw has taken the lead to prioritize safety with projects like the bridge to Bailey-Boswell Road, which is designed to improve east-west connectivity, and roundabouts and road expansions to facilitate more efficient and safer flow of traffic on secondary thoroughfares.
We are looking for solutions to some of our greatest infrastructure-related challenges and we are looking for partners who are also committed to making this a safer community for everyone. On behalf of the students and staff of Eagle Mountain-Saginaw ISD, I thank you.