On a late August Friday afternoon, Margaret, a freshman at Anderson High School, had three choices to get home: walk against traffic along Loop 360 with no sidewalk; walk on a trail for more than an hour; or take a shortcut by going down a steep concrete embankment, across Bull Creek, and up another embankment.
“It’s just really hard to get down to the trail, so the highway is easier, it’s just more scary,” Margaret said as she looked down the steep slope. “I don’t want to get run over just trying to walk home.”
Margaret was prepared to walk in the 100-degree heat, but unexpected rain brought temperatures down to the low 90s. This was the second time she was walking home from her newly assigned bus hub. The first time she said she almost had a heatstroke…