We currently have a school project under construction. Under option 2, we are required to have 2 or more bus lines within 1/4 mile. The school bus will count as one of our lines dropping off kids at the front entrance at the school. We also have another public bus line that has agreed to stop at the same main entrance of the school.
Since both bus lines have agreed to stop at the main entrance of the school and not just at the road in front of the school, do we need to have the dedicated walking paths to the property line? The intent of this is so that kids could walk down to the bus stop which would be away from the school, but since both bus stops are actually at the school entrance do we still need sidewalks for this particular credit.
We do have a bike rack for c4.2 so bike paths in both directions I suppose will be needed anyway but will we need walking paths?
David Posada
Integrated Design & LEED SpecialistSERA Architects
LEEDuser Expert
1977 thumbs up
September 14, 2012 - 4:56 pm
It sounds like walking paths that go down to the school entrance where the buses stop might be enough if you are pursuing Option 2, but it falls short of Option 3.
There is a comment over on the NC 2002 Schools page for a similar situation. Are you actually pursuing Core & Shell for a school?
Justin Offutt
September 17, 2012 - 8:10 am
Option 2 is what we're persuing. I just need to know if we still need paths to the end of the property even though we have both bus stops at the school entrance.
David Posada
Integrated Design & LEED SpecialistSERA Architects
LEEDuser Expert
1977 thumbs up
September 21, 2012 - 2:07 pm
In the Reference Guide page 41, in the Schools: All Options box, it looks like the main intent it to provide walking or biking paths "to the transit lines."
This is one of those cases where you'd want to go into the review with a few extra credits over the certification level you are targeting, since its common for projects to miss a few points due to different interpretations of credit language. If this point is critical, you'd have to do a CIR to know for sure.