Transportation Commission to Discuss Middle School Crossing Guards at Tonight's Virtual Meeting – Wednesday, September 18th at 5:00 PM

This is a reminder that the Transportation Commission meeting will take place tonight, Wednesday, September 18, at 5:00 p.m. in virtual format. Agenda items include crossing guards at middle schools, a working session on the Complete Green Streets Guide, and a presentation on the 2025 operating budget.

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I first blogged about Crossing Guards on August 25, 2025, but here is a recap of sorts. The Common Council last amended the School Crossing Protection Criteria in 2016, so any policy changes would need to begin with an amendment to that document. The Madison Metropolitan School District (MMSD) was established in 1967. It was formed by merging several smaller school districts into a single, unified district to better serve the educational needs of the Madison area.  It was the School Board, not the City of Madison, that established the 1972 policy to provide crossing guards solely at elementary schools. Their policy did not extend to middle schools. In 1977, responsibility for the policy transferred from the Board of Education to the City of Madison, which also assumed full funding for the program on behalf of the Madison Metropolitan School District (MMSD) —a practice that continues today, even as the population of Madison has grown significantly and traffic has become much busier.  

SCHOOL CROSSING PROTECTION CRITERIA

• Adopted as Policy on August 31, 1976, by Common Council by Amended Resolution #29,540
  • Amended on September 14, 1976, by Resolution #29,569
  • Amended on September 28, 1976, by Resolution #29,650
  • Amended on June 30, 1981, by Resolution #37,137
  • Amended on July 10, 1990, by Resolution #46,920
  • Amended on January 5, 2016, by Resolution # RES-16-00032
    
     

To implement a new Middle School Crossing Guard Program, several updates and considerations might be discussed tonight:

1. Policy Update: Clarify whether middle schools will use the same criteria as elementary schools or have separate criteria.
2. School and Crossing Review: Identify schools and crossings for consideration and assess if they meet the established criteria. The Transportation Commission typically reviews staff recommendations for approval.
3. Staffing: Begin by offering new positions to current crossing guards based on seniority, and initiate hiring to fill anticipated openings due to understaffing.
4. Prioritization: Decide which school locations should be prioritized if crossing guard staffing is limited.
5. Middle School Program Specifics: Secure funding for new locations, hire additional substitute guards to cover middle school hours, and establish a process for managing sick calls or emergencies in the afternoon when current supervisors are unavailable. This could incur additional costs depending on the final approved structure.

Finally, I am including the introduction to the 2016 amended School Crossing Protection Criteria verbatim, as it succinctly explains how we arrived at this point. The full report is available at https://www.cityofmadison.com/traffic-engineering/documents/SchXngProtectCriteria2016_0.pdf

Introduction

Concern is often expressed regarding the safety of children walking to and from school. During their early years, children are in the process of learning how to safely travel to and from school. Madison over the years has utilized several safety “tools” to help protect school-age pedestrians. School and school crossing locations are identified by uniform street signing and marking at strategic locations. Adult School Crossing Guards have for several decades been used at crosswalks on busy streets where large numbers of children cross.

In the early 1960’s, the Traffic Engineering Division reviewed the City’s school crossing protection policies and investigated what criteria other cities were using to determine whether an adult crossing guard was needed. Criteria thought appropriate for Madison were developed and subsequently accepted as policy by the Common Council.

In 1975 the Common Council requested a reevaluation of the criteria to determine if it was still applicable. A subcommittee consisting of members of the Common Council, Board of Education, Transportation Commission, Madison Area Safety Council, and Parent Advisory group; persons with expertise in the area of safety engineering; and citizens, conducted an in-depth, lengthy review of the original 1962 criteria and recommended to the Council that only minor revisions be made. The criteria detail a method of analyzing traffic situations to determine the degree of hazard, provide a comparison of school crossings throughout the City, and recommend on the basis of need measures to be taken to reduce the hazards associated with school crossings.

In 2014 the Pedestrian-Bicycle-Motor Vehicle Commission requested a review of the criteria. In particular, they wanted to compare Madison’s criteria for assigning and discontinuing Adult School Crossing Guards with recommendations from the Safe Routes to School movement and from peer communities. This review found that Madison’s criteria is still one of the best in the country.

The Common Council adopted the following criteria (as amended) as a policy guideline in September 1976 and amended it in June 1981, July 1990 and January 2016.