LOXLEY, Ala. — Within the next year or so , students at Loxley Elementary may have a new sidewalk to walk to school on as the Town of Loxley was recently awarded a $150,000 “Safe Routes To School” grant by the The Alabama Department of Transportation.

The Town applied for the grant in November, 2010, and it will cover 100 percent of the cost of construction, said Stacy McKean of Premier Grant Consulting, LLC of Fairhope.

“The existing sidewalk will be connected to the new sidewalk and will connect the school to neighborhoods and the park in the area. The town is going to meet with ALDOT soon to discuss plans about construction,” McKean said.

The K-sixth grade school, located on County Road 49, was built in 1927, has 370 students and LES principal Dr. DeAnn Ramey said the addition of the sidewalk will greatly improve safety conditions.

“The school currently has to pay for buses to transport children to the public park for field trips when they could easily walk if sidewalks existed,” Ramey said.

Created in 2005, the SRTS program “aims to enable and encourage children in grades K-8 , including those with disabilities, to walk and bicycle to school and make it safer and more appealing and to facilitate the planning, development and implementation of projects that will improve highway safety and reduce traffic, fuel consumption and air pollution in the vicinity of schools,” said the ALDOT website.

The project area is limited to a two-mile radius of an elementary or middle school and all funds for project categories must be used to improve the ability of children to walk or bicycle to school and can include:

-installing bicycle parking facilities

-installing street striping (crosswalks, bike lanes)

-installing signs

-providing facilities to slow traffic

-installing or improving sidewalks

-increasing connectivity between locations

-developing alternative drop-off sites

-developing off-street bicycle and pedestrian facilities

-improving handicap accessibility

-improvement of other facilities that may be related to the goals of this program