Pasco County is pouring 12.79 miles of new sidewalks this school year to close gaps along routes that thousands of students walk or bike to class, and county officials say the streets around Wesley Chapel Elementary remain among the most dangerous stretches in the entire program.
The work is part of the county’s Safe Routes to School effort, which has picked up urgency since 2022, when Pasco eliminated courtesy busing for students who live within two miles of their school. That change left many families in Wesley Chapel with no choice but to walk, bike, or drive their kids along roads that, in some spots, never had a sidewalk to begin with.
“We started looking at sidewalks within the two-mile radius of schools to connect sidewalks and fill those missing connections,” said Pasco County Engineering Manager Beau Thompson…