Transportation Agency of Monterey County celebrated the grand opening of the King City Traffic Garden with community members earlier this month at San Antonio Park in King City.
The Dec. 2 event featured a ribbon-cutting ceremony, followed by the community celebration that invited both children and adults to bring their bikes and scooters to try out the new course.
Traffic gardens are places where youth can learn the rules of the road and practice bicycling and driving skills in a safe environment. They feature small-sized streets with scaled-down elements to teach how to navigate roadways.
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.”
Saturday’s celebration in King City was originally scheduled for Nov. 18 but was delayed due to rain.
In addition to safety trainings and raffle prizes, the celebration also included a bike repair workshop hosted by the Greenfield Community Science Workshop team, which repaired more than 80 bikes and wheeled rides.
