The crosswalk across Smith Street at Wood Street to Lakeview Middle School will be eliminated because of safety concerns. Students will be directed to use the crosswalk at Scott Street. Photo by David Slone, Times-Union.
WARSAW — Students crossing Smith Street to Lakeview Middle School this fall will have to use the crosswalk at Scott Street as the crosswalk at Wood Street will be eliminated for safety reasons.
Warsaw Police Department Capt. Joel Beam told the Warsaw Traffic Commission Wednesday, June 4, currently there are two crosswalks on Smith Street at Lakeview, one at Wood and the other at Scott. “The crosswalk at Wood Street goes from a sidewalk by the school to a road with no sidewalk. The visibility is extremely poor, and the kids that are crossing there don’t walk there — they come via car,” Beam said.
WPD Cpl. Jordan Roberts, who serves as the school resource officer at Lakeview, explained, “The idea would be to remove the Wood Street crossing, just due to the fact that it’s not very safe. The visibility there is very poor. We had the most issues with cars not stopping for the designated walk area at that area, and, as Capt. Beam said, once the students cross Smith Street, there’s no sidewalk, it’s a through road.”
He said the proposal would be to remove the Wood Street crossing and have all student traffic be forced to cross over at Scott Street where there’s better visibility, sidewalks and “due to the layout of the sidewalks for the school — students crossing at Wood Street there, their quickest point to get into the building is to cross through the parent pick-up line. So that forces us then to go out, stop parent pick-up, bring kids across.”
The kids who cross at Scott Street have a clear sidewalk path to go all the way into the building, Roberts said. Scott Street also has more sidewalks and ways for the students to walk to Winona Avenue to cross if they have to go west to walk. Another issue is that parents will turn to go north on Wood Street and hit Winona Avenue, but kids will be walking down the middle of Wood Street because there’s no sidewalk.
Roberts told the commission he knows that Principal Todd Braddock has issued numerous letters and emails to parents who have been identified as dropping their kids off on Wood Street, but it hasn’t stopped. “They basically treat it like an alleyway or secondary drop-off location to get around the parent pick-up or the parent drop-off line,” Roberts stated.
Warsaw Community Schools Transportation Director Mark Fick said it was against school policy to have students cross a road without a sidewalk there. It’s also illegal for the school corporation to have students cross railroad tracks, too, Fick said.
Warsaw Public Works and Street Superintendent Dustin Dillon asked why there was a crosswalk there at Wood Street if there’s no sidewalk along Wood Street. Beam asked Dillon if it was rare to have a crosswalk go from a sidewalk to a place without a sidewalk. Dillon said it was and, “It doesn’t look like it’s up to any of our standards anyway. We don’t typically encourage mid-block crossings that are not a controlled intersection.” Dillon said he would definitely be in favor of removing the crosswalk at Wood and Smith streets.
“If it’s OK with the school, I think we would be in favor of removing that mid-block crossing right there,” Dillon stated.
Fick said he guessed no one had noticed it before. Roberts said he mentioned it to WCS Assistant Superintendent of Secondary Education Tracy Horrell so Horrell is aware of it and Roberts was going to be at the traffic commission to talk about it. Horrell told Roberts he also was in favor of removing the crosswalk.
Fick said what he understood from Roberts’ comments was that parents weren’t doing the right procedures for parent pick-up and drop-off. Roberts said that was correct and, “Since the crossing is there, they go up on Winona, they’ll go in that alley, they’ll pull down Wood Street, they’ll let the kids out. Kids will go straight to that crosswalk and cross.”
Traffic Administrator Lance Grubbs said no one wants to wait in line along Canal Street to drop their kids off, which is why they’re dropping their kids off elsewhere like Wood Street. Roberts said he understood that, but other parents are following the correct procedures. School doors open at 7 a.m. for kids to be dropped off.
Roberts said they’re discussing proposals to change the parent pick-up line to get more traffic off of Smith Street, but have not come up with anything concrete yet. Dillon pointed out in the next couple weeks, Smith Street is going to be microsurfaced so it’ll be temporarily without pavement markings for a week or so. He said he’ll definitely get with the contractor if the traffic commission was in favor of removing the Wood Street crosswalk and signifying that Scott Street is the only crossing on Smith Street to Lakeview.
Beam said he thinks the Wood Street crosswalk and intersection are dangerous and may not even be up to code. He said he likes the idea of removing the crosswalk and hopefully removing danger.
Grubbs asked if signage should be put up at Wood and Smith to tell students not to cross there. Roberts said his thought was that for at least the first week or two of school, he would stand out there and make sure kids don’t cross there. He assumed some type of notification would be sent out to parents to let them know the Wood Street crosswalk was no longer an option. Dillon said he would get with the schools to take down any signs that need to be removed.
