Treacherous sidewalks force East Macon students to walk in road. Teacher lends help.

A Bibb County School District teacher’s online plea for help to improve East Macon’s pedestrian safety concerns has grabbed the attention of many community members.

Heather Harvey, a third grade teacher at Burdell-Hunt Magnet Elementary School, said the neglected sidewalks in the Fort Hill neighborhood make it difficult for student walkers to safely travel to and from class.

“Once they leave the property of the school, that’s when we run into problems where you’re unable to even see the sidewalk, so kids are walking in the streets,” Harvey said. “Sometimes, tree limbs are closed in on the road, so cars are unable to drive down the side. They have to actually come to the middle.”

Harvey, who accompanies student walkers, said she has been filing SeeClickFix tickets for overgrown vegetation on Center, Hall and Mitchell streets since 2021. SeeClickFix is a real-time reporting platform that allows Bibb County residents to report non-emergency issues to county leaders.

She said most of the reports have not been addressed, prompting her to encourage community members with landscaping equipment to assist in the prolonged battle against sidewalk overgrowth.

District 3 Commissioner-elect Stanley Stewart said road safety has been a citywide issue for years. He responded swiftly to Harvey’s call-out, accompanied by other concerned residents and parents prepared to cut grass and pull weeds.

“We are on demand and under budget in certain areas, which is why it takes a community effort for some of us to step in and get the job done,” Stewart said. “We appreciate everything the city can do when they do it, but I just know that when I see a problem, I try to correct that problem.”

Stewart said he wants to launch a recurring initiative, in which he and community members choose certain locations for cleanup.

Despite being proud of the community’s response, District 8 Commissioner Virgil Watkins told The Telegraph it’s the city’s public works department’s job to maintain roads and sidewalks.

“We need to do better,” Watkins said, expressing some embarrassment over how city authorities are not addressing the issue and outlining his idea to compensate residents for their cleanup efforts.

Harvey said the walks from school occasionally entail encounters with dogs or other pedestrians in the neighborhood who are probably not the safest.

“I’ve had kids who’ve said, ‘Ms. Harvey, I’m scared,’” she said. “But most of them are used to walking in the neighborhood, so sometimes they don’t recognize the danger they’re in because they’re used to that environment. As a teacher, I walk with them and … say let’s cross the street and go this way or make sure they use the crossing guards.”

More road safety solutions in Macon

Macon-Bibb County received nearly $6 million for pedestrian safety improvements, with some of it slated to form “an absolute gamechanger for East Macon” through installments of street lighting and modernized crosswalk signals to improve visibility and more, District 3 Commissioner Elaine Lucas said in a press release.

Harvey said Macon-Bibb County workers have responded to her online post by cutting grass in some of the mentioned areas. But she said there’s more work to be done, and the community is stepping up to fix problems that it should not have regarding student walk zones.

“The concern is we shouldn’t have to continue to make these complaints. There should be a plan put in place that every so often they come out and make sure these areas are accessible to the students, or anyone using the sidewalks,” Harvey said.

Local agencies will partner with Community Schools United of United Way of Central Georgia and Keep Macon-Bibb Beautiful to host a neighborhood Clean Up Day on Oct. 19 at Burdell-Hunt Magnet Elementary from 9 a.m. to noon.

Harvey thanked the community for coming together to help the students of East Macon, noting that many parents have volunteered to clear sidewalks since her initial post on Sunday.

Both Harvey and Stewart said the students are happy to know that the community cares about them and their safety.

“That’s what it’s all about. Just show people that you do care,” Stewart said. “The more you do that, people will kind of maybe pick up on it and do more things themselves within the neighborhood. Even if they don’t, at least the kids can see that we do care about them.”