KING CITY — The grand opening of the King City Traffic Garden at San Antonio Park, originally scheduled for Nov. 18, was postponed due to inclement weather.
After rain was forecasted for the weekend, Transportation Agency for Monterey County (TAMC) announced the celebration would now be held two weeks later — on Saturday, Dec. 2, from 11 a.m. to 2 p.m. Community members are invited to bring their bikes and scooters to try out the new course, located next to the King City Skate Park, on the corner of Bedford Avenue and San Antonio Drive.
“Traffic gardens are safe and fun spaces,” according to TAMC in a news release. “Their purpose is to be a place where children can learn the rules of the road and practice bicycling and driving skills in a safe environment.”
Traffic gardens feature small-sized streets with scaled-down traffic features to teach youth how to navigate streets and traffic. The King City Traffic Garden is one of 12 traffic gardens installed in the past couple of months at various locations throughout Monterey County.
In South Monterey County, other traffic gardens are located at Oak Avenue Elementary School in Greenfield, Gabilan Elementary School in Soledad and La Gloria Elementary School in Gonzales.
The project — funded by Measure X and Senate Bill 1 funds — is a collaboration between TAMC, Ecology Action, Greenfield Community Science Workshop, Blue Zones Project Monterey County, County of Monterey Health Department and the City of King.
It is part of TAMC’s Safe Routes to School program, which offers tools, programming and resources to schools, guardians and communities aimed at improving safety and traffic around schools. The program’s goal is to “keep every child safe and healthy by reducing the number of students involved in collisions to zero.”
More information about the Safe Route to Schools can be found at saferoutesmonterey.org.
