The School Board has gotten a steady stream of pleas from East High School parents begging that we do something to make their parking safe. This danger was predicted years ago by Let Duluth Vote and one of Duluth’s preeminent landscape architects Kent Worley:
There is extremely limited space for parents to stop their cars along 40th Avenue East to unload and load students In fact there is space for only 15 cars at most [didn’t the Traffic Study state space for 101 cars to load would be necessary?] Where will others go with not having enough space to even stop the car? They will go to the dead-end bus drop lane, and that is exactly where you do not want them to go. The reasons are safety, students walking between incoming and leaving buses, and incoming and leaving cars. Cars entering and leaving parking lots should not be mixing with the buses, but because the site is so small, parking and buses and parent cars will have to use the same drive. This is an absolutely wrong way to safely deal with students, cars and buses, they need physical separation. Others typically try a quick stop and drop along Superior Street in the midst of its fast moving thru traffic. The few parking spaces for drop on 40th are not isolated as they should be with their own SEPARATED parent car arrival / stop / waiting / parking activities which normally occur. Thru-traffic vehicles occupy driving lanes which are un-separated from drop/pick up lanes. Students will be walking across 40th Avenue East from its east side crossing to the school as parents attempt to stop along this east curb, again in moving traffic.
There’s more here on the old Let Duluth Vote website.
Kent’s predictions have come true.
This is a parent’s plea to us this morning:
Hello,
I have a daughter who attends Duluth East and I shot this video yesterday. I have put it on You Tube and I think it will show you a little bit of the insanity that occurs while trying to leave the parking lot after school. There is no direction and cars turning onto 40th try to avoid pedestrians, etc. There are also cars parked backwards on Luverne as well. When will we take charge and do something about this dangerous situation? Will a child need to be injured (or killed) before we stand up and make this safe?
Having someone to direct traffic onto 40th and hold kids back from crossing so that traffic can clear, seems to be a simple solution.
We need to do something before it is too late.
Thank you for your time!
Here’s his video…….it gives me the willies.
I did reply to the parent:
Mr. *************.
Thank you for sharing this video. This is the best proof yet of our desperate need to find a solution to this dangerous situation. I’ve put it on my blog with some commentary.
I’m too angry at the moment to offer you any comfort. I think the danger of this situation is ironically one of the few things that keeps our children safe. Local drivers have gotten used to driving with care during periods like this. Unfortunately, not everyone driving through on E. Superior will always be familiar with or anticipate this can of worms.
God help us because the School Board is preoccupied with other more pressing matters than the lives of our children.
I’ll share my thoughts with the rest of the Board. Maybe it will wake them up.
Harry Welty
