Last week's ribbon-cutting ceremony for the South Pointe Trail was an appropriate celebration for a much-needed pathway to protect student safety. But the occasion also should have served as a reprimand to Rock Hill school district and York County officials for failing to anticipate the need for the trail.
Students who live within 1.5 miles of their school are not permitted, by state law, to ride buses to and from school. But when the school opened in 2005, students living along Crawford Road and in the nearby College Downs neighborhood had no safe route for walking to school.
The county eventually agreed to build a path, but with delays in getting necessary permits from the state, the path still had not been completed when the new school year started last August. It wasn't opened until nearly two months later.
