Conners Emerson School Committee Feels Vision Zero Draft Plan Currently Lacks Detail for Safety of Student Movement

Shaun Farrar

Feb 04, 2026

The Bar Harbor Story is generously sponsored by Window Panes Home and Garden.

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BAR HARBOR—At a meeting with a plethora of reports and updates, the Bar Harbor School Committee appeared to be most interested, and slightly troubled, by Principal Dr. Heather Weir Webster’s “sidewalk safety update,” which was an update on the Town of Bar Harbor’s Bar Harbor Vision Zero draft plan.

This 112-page document outlines the town’s “campaign to eliminate fatalities and serious injuries on our roads, acknowledges that even one loss of life on our roads is unacceptable.”

However, the committee worried it didn’t focus enough on specific planning for children from Conners Emerson to reenter the downtown area safely.

Principal Dr. Heather Weir Webster said, “It is interesting when you look down through the plan, there is really only one page dedicated to what we have been talking about with the sidewalk safety and our students going from our school down to designated locations, whether that is the Y, the Jesup Library, or Hannaford. It didn’t really specify, they kind of had a map, but didn’t really specify what changes would be most appropriate or where the most optimal crossing would be. Those were really questions that we had asked.”

“I was hoping for more in terms of the school and what we have been talking about with the sidewalk safety,” said Dr. Webster.

While there is a diagram of “possible designated walking and biking routes between key destinations for kids in Bar Harbor,” it does not exactly match what has been identified as the “priority network” by the draft plan. The draft plan’s “priority network” doesn’t include the hub of the route that children take to get from Conners Emerson back into town, the Eden Street school crossing.

The “implement pedestrian and bicycle improvements around schools and other community facilities” page also states that the “responsible parties” should “initiate assessments of safety needs near schools, beginning with the top crash locations.”

This draft plan, when completed, marks the end of the planning stages and the beginning of the implementation phases of this project according to public statements made by town officials.

Dr. Webster also mentioned that there is another advisory group meeting on February 5, at 1:00 p.m., in the town council chambers as well as a community engagement event on February 5, at 6:00 p.m., at the Annex at Side Street Cafe on Rodick Street in Bar Harbor.

“I was surprised that there was very little about sidewalk safety, like we have been talking about for months. We have been talking about it since, October maybe, since the October board meeting, maybe even earlier because I think your first sidewalk safety meeting was in August. So, we as a board have brought up our concerns, we’ve taken action, met with Elias, Officer Burne, we’ve had some substantive conversations and feedback, and thought processes about what type of a street would be safe down to the minutia almost, in many ways. So, I was a little bit surprised that out of the document there was not really a lot of that captured,” said Bar Harbor School Committee Chair Marie Yarborough.

She continued, “I think that not only do, I guess I would ask the board and the administration what might be some concrete steps, you have outlined two, attend the meeting and fill out the Polco survey, but what are some other concrete steps, because I feel like we have had some pretty robust discussions.”

She further detailed those discussions, “We have also talked about a piece of that as asking for the Y to resume the bus service. We have looked at it as a multifaceted approach to how we want safety to be implemented for our students. One is the bus, two is the sidewalk, yada yada yada, but I don’t see the depth and breadth of those conversations reflected in this very large document.”

There are plans for a potential rotary-style intersection at the intersection of Eden Street and Mount Desert Street. While this plan does speak to pedestrian crosswalks, it does not specifically mention the school crosswalk just north on Eden Street, nor how northbound traffic on Eden Street is sometimes backed up to the light due to the crosswalk during the busier tourist season months when school is still in session. Stopped traffic would likely effectively negate vehicular passage for half of the rotary style intersection.

This potential plan has also been identified as a long-term plan with a high level of expense.

Another part of the plan speaks to education and public awareness with one page entitled, “encourage an educational curriculum on pedestrian safety.”

On this page, it states that a “key step to implement” is to “promote safe routes to school by identifying and improving pathways for walking and biking.”

Yarborough then asked how the board feels it should move forward other than attending Thursday’s meeting at the Annex and Side Street Cafe and filling out the Polco survey and what is the best way to amplify the work that the board has done.

Vice Chair Misha Mytar asked if it made sense to have someone from the town come to a board meeting and speak with them in person.

Dr. Webster said that at the last meeting she asked very specific questions, such as where is the best place for crosswalks and how can they be made more visible.

Yarborough then reinforced the idea of direct conversation between the board and a town representative or someone from the consultation firm, or both, and asked as many board members as possible to attend the community engagement even on February 5, and also suggested a workshop with the town and consultation firm after the event had occurred.

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