School zone safety improving, but dangers still lurk - Detroit Free Press
When Detroit school students return to class this fall, every neighborhood street in the city will have new LED streetlights to brighten their paths. But even in many of the neighborhoods that got the new lights last winter, parents are afraid to let their children walk to school. On a school morning this spring, one of the new lights lit up the center of a neighborhood block on Detroit's west side. But the wider spacing of the new light posts left the ends of the block in the dark in the predawn hours when some children are walking to school. "It ain't about the lights," Jimmie Lockhart, 61, told the Free Press as he steered his volunteer patrol van that morning through the neighborhood around the Cody Complex near Joy Road and the Southfield Freeway. City figures show there are now about 29,000 dangerous buildings in need of demolition, down from about 33,000 in 2012. Duggan said the city is doing its best but is limited by funding and time. As the city also works to improve lighting and public transportation, fears remain, complicating Detroit's efforts to repopulate neighborhoods. "You can't let your children walk to school," said Derrick Williams, a 1986 Cody graduate whose son is a 10th-grader at the school. Source: www.freep.com
