EASTON, Md. — The town of Easton wants to hear from folks about street safety and accessibility, and it has rolled out a new interactive tool to make that easier.
An interactive map, newly posted to the town's website, lets residents pinpoint a location, drop a marker and pick a category to flag safety concerns for town officials. Categories range from traffic and bicyclist safety to pedestrian mobility.
The map is part of Easton's "Complete Streets" initiative, which leaders say is working to correct some of the mistakes made as roads were built with cars prioritized over other forms of transportation.
Town leaders' say a big focus is on improving pedestrian and cyclist safety, ensuring alternate paths of safe travels for those not in cars.
“Complete streets, that means it's for the complete cross-section, it's for the vehicle, but it's also for the bicycle, it's also for the pedestrian,” said Rick Van Emburgh, Town Engineer and Director of Easton’s Public Works Department. “We are constantly looking at our streets. We're constantly trying to improve them, repair them. But this allows us to look at the whole system holistically across the town of Easton and apply these improvements all over town.”
Town leaders also say equity is a major focus of the project. Van Emburgh said the goal is to make sure all residents can get around safely, no matter how they choose to travel.
“We want to make sure…that the sidewalks aren't just in certain areas, that they're everywhere,” Van Emburgh said. “We want to create balance in the town, and we want to make sure that everybody has equal opportunities to use the streets, with whatever mode of transportation they're going to use.”
Van Emburgh said a recently completed stretch of the town's Rails to Trails project showed him just how many residents rely on walking to get to work and run errands, not just for recreation. That realization helped shape one of the town's key focuses in this project: intersections.
Some residents already have ideas about what needs to change. Jessica Kinnish, who has been working in the town for over 10 years, said biking through town is not something she would do herself.
"Riding your bike through town, there's no lanes specifically for bicycles, so I don't know that anybody really should be riding a bike through here," Kinnish said.
Other residents pointed to crosswalks as an area that needs attention. Hannah Meyers, who has lived in the Easton area since childhood, said navigating the town's streets on foot involves unwritten rules that aren't always clear to newcomers.
"I know definitely with the experience that I've had from being here since I was a child, you sort of learn that there's nuances and rules, the way the town sort of works and walking and crossing and driving and not all of that is really publicized," Meyers said. “So I think definitely making the community a lot safer and making it a place where we can really welcome strangers who want to experience what we get to experience every day. Sort of making a guideline and just those laws, sort of obvious for everyone, so we can all just be happy and not have to worry about any injuries.”
Town leaders say neighbor input is imperative for the planning of future community projects.
“It's really important that we get as much information as we can from the public to be able to take their concerns and test those and see if there actually are infrastructure issues that are causing those problems. And so without their input, we wouldn't be able to do that,” Director of Planning and Zoning Miguel Salinas said.
As part of the new webpage, the town is also asking residents to fill out a survey sharing their feedback on street safety.
Van Emburgh said the town is putting the final touches on a draft of the Complete Streets manual, which is expected to be released to the public within the next couple of weeks.
The manual sets out a long-term vision for what Easton's streets should look like, and the town will use it to guide the technical plans for future street reconstruction.
