Last week, Mrs. Sean drew Oak Hill orientation duty. She was surprised (and delighted) by the heavy emphasis on not driving kids right to the door. The powers that be really, really, really don’t want traffic right in front of the school.
Which makes me wonder, why do school administrators have to beg? Let’s just make it illegal to drive within 1/4 mile of a school during drop-off and pick-up times (with special dispensation for physical hardship).
Sorry, junior, love to drop you closer, but the man won’t let me. Grab your backpack and get out of the damn car.
I’ve actually been wondering about this. Not only about the drop-off itself, but why allow 2-way traffic on roads in front of schools during drop-off and pick-up? At the very least we could eliminate that.
My kids actually prefer to bike to school, but we need to cross a couple of busy intersections, which makes it something they can only do with me. Also, it’s difficult to get them home during the winter when it’s dark as they come out of after-care. I could get them lots of lights, but something tells me that it wouldn’t be enough for safety.
Cars and pint sized pedestrians are a bad mix. They should be separated by as much distance as possible. But it’s not as easy as it sounds. Moving the location of a drop-off zone, only relocates the problem down the street. You have to consider the logistics at each school independently.
My kids went to Mason-Rice, and the Blue Zone there always scared the hell out of me. Cars and kids converging in a very small space–all at the same time–parents rushing to get to work–seems like a bad idea. Mason-Rice is fortunate to have a great principle though, who personally supervises the Blue Zone to help keep kids safe.
The most dangerous situation that I’ve seen at any Newton school is actually in the parking lot behind Oak Hill Middle School. I spent a great deal of time at those fields coaching youth sports. I saw many close calls in that parking lot.
The problem was seriously exacerbated by the installation of modulars two years ago. The modulars took a piece of the parking lot and made an already tight situation into something barely navigable. It created the very apparent danger of a child being crushed between a car and the exterior wall of the modular. This is a design flaw that should never have been approved by the Building Department.
It’s not an issue during school. It’s an issue on the weekends during soccer season. Adding to the danger, many of the parents and children are from travel teams, and have no familiarity with that lot. In my opinion, that lot is the biggest “accident waiting to happen.”
Mike writes:
Only partially true. At most schools, a car-free zone around the school would create multiple drop-off zones. It would disperse the problem.
My favorite is that I pay $600+ a year to have my two kids BUSSED to school every day. Once the bus fees hit elementary schools, there are less kids on the bus.
I also love how the Newton South parking fee went DOWN but the bus fee went UP.
NewtonMom: You’re right. At a marginal point, fees do become a disincentive.
I always wondered why anyone would choose to sit in a traffic jam when the easy solution is to avoid the gridlock by traveling 3 blocks in any direction.
I cannot see how this would work at Lincoln-Eliot, your talking about 2 high traffic roads (Jackson Road & Pearl Street) . No way you could make them one ways and no way you could move the drop off zone to anywhere in that area or neighborhood. Logistically just cannot be done, we do not have much of a problem , and many in the neighborhood walk
In the case of Zervas, Beethoven has recently been restricted to be one way during school drop off and pick up hours. It seems to be working well as a compromise between forbidding cars anywhere near the schools (inconvenient, impractical, and un-necessary) and allowing what had been more or less a free for all.
Enforced walking 1/4 mile would hugely benefit our kids. I am constantly amazed at how some of my kids’ friends struggle w/ our little 1/3 mile walk home when they come for an afterschool playdate. Some struggle to do basic kid stuff, like balance hopping stone to stone and many are already plump. And these kids are all on sports/gymnastic teams, etc.
As for the argument that they have to be driven because their parents work – that’s why we pay for crossing guards. Though the danger of kids being hit is up – because many seem to have no basic road awareness and dart into the street without looking for cars.
Roads around Bigelow and Underwood are mostly one way already. At Bigelow it seems to create a huge jamup on Park St as people try to get as close as possible, while my memories of Underwood are of a parking free for all.
I live close enough for my son to walk– and we should walk more than we do, I’ll admit – to Bigelow. However, the lack of crossing guards (I know, slightly separate issue) on the major Newton Corner roads is a major source of angst on the river side of the Pike.
Would love to see more incentives NOT to drive.
“At most schools, a car-free zone around the school would create multiple drop-off zones. It would disperse the problem.”
The first question is how well would it disperse the problem? It’s easier to make the argument for limiting cars near elementary schools because the sheer number of elementary schools in Newton means that most people live within very close proximity to their schools. Conversely, we have two middle schools serving approximately one-half of the city’s middle school age population within a stone’s throw of each other. Relocating drop off .25 miles from Brown/Oak Hill would mean parents would be telling their kids to “get out of the damn car” at Jane Road and Wheeler Road, Meadowbrook and Arnold Road, or the intersection of Hartman Road and Greenwood Street. Sharpe Road could be a drop off point, but this would entail lots of cars making u-turns in the middle of that street because they would not be permitted to drive straight through to Wheeler Road. It’s also important to recall that Wheeler Road has relatively few houses, whereas these adjacent residential streets have many homes, many cars, many people leaving in the morning. More cars, more driveways, more risk to kids walking that last .25 miles to school. On the other hand, Wheeler Road has a long expanse of uninterrupted sidewalk/bluezone dedicated to drop off. Also, unlike a school zone which has a 20 mph speed limit, the speed limit in a thickly settled residential area is 30 mph.
The second question is how much would this antagonize the 70 percent of Newtonites who do not have school aged children? In a city with a population density of approximately 4500 people per square mile, we have many, many homes and residents living within .25 mile school buffer zones who would be either landlocked during drop off hours or forced to leave their cars in the same .25 mile area where parents will be dropping off their kids.
A great deal of the traffic pressure around the elementary schools is caused by the very narrow 15 minute drop-off window where parents are racing the clock to get their kids to school between 8:20 a.m. and 8:35 a.m. When my kids were in pre-K and K, they attended a private school comparable in size to most Newton elementary schools nestled in a lovely residential neighborhood. Given that parents had a 30 minute window to drop them off in the morning, traffic was a non-issue.
@NewtonMom – yes, in our neighborhood, the hundreds of dollars in bus fees for elementary school children that live miles away from their school has definitely pushed kids off the buses and into their parent’s cars.
If you’re talking about MS kids, you can be sure that they are able to walk more than .25 miles in a suburban neighborhood and not be hit by a car. How do kids manage to get from Day MS to N’ville safely after school to hang out with friends or go to their friend’s houses?
Mr. Sean – how about pulling a Nancy Reagan with the kids who want a door to door drop off? Just say no.
@Jane, You’re right: it should be up to parents to decide whether their kids could use the extra exercise and whether to drop them at the door or a mile away. This is nothing more than Sean’s endless tilting at a windmill the rest of us call an automobile.
Lisa, Lisa, Lisa. It’s about the externalities.
Sure, it should be up to the parents to decide if they want their children to get or not get some fresh air and a little walk. And, yes, health benefits are a good reason to encourage kids to walk to school.
But, school officials (I’m not the only one tilting) are concerned about the safety and quality-of-life issues that arise from a regularly scheduled traffic jam in front of the schools each morning. It’s time for drivers to own up to and be responsible for the impact that unnecessary driving has on our community. Parents’ decisions to drive the little darlings right to the door have effects beyond the aforementioned darlings’ exercise opportunity.
No, Sean, it’s not about externalities. It’s about generalities being draw from a comment allegedly made by a school official resulting in a needlessly aggressive suggestion that we create an auto free buffer zone around all schools. I was an Oak Hill parent for 3 years and have been a Brown parent for 5 years, and with a combined experience of 8 years I can personally reassure you that I have never once experienced any regularly scheduled traffic jam any time I’ve needed to drive my kids over there, nor have the administrators of either school expressed alarm or concern about traffic issues to parents — with the sole exception of reminding parents not to stop in the rotary. You didn’t hear that there’s a traffic problem at Oak Hill or Brown because one in fact exists, you heard it because that is what you wanted to hear. Where traffic issues exist it’s certainly appropriate to address those hazards. To extrapolate the need for a city-wide auto-free buffer zone around every school based on an off-hand remark is folly.
I have no problem with parents making the decision to sit in a traffic jam so they can drop their kids off at the door of school. Just don’t say that it’s a safety issue because it isn’t. With the exception of the Newton Corner situation, the quarter to half mile distance to the schools is safe. Many students walk at least part of the way to and from school each day and manage to do so safely.
@Jane, well luckily we’re not going to have an opportunity to test this social experiment because there’s no way people in this city are going to tolerate being told that they can’t drive to and from their homes during school drop off times.
Oh, Lisa, I do appreciate your effort on this one.
Have you ever talked to anyone who lives within a school drop-off area? They can’t get in and out of their driveways now! I’ll bet you all the gold, canned food, and bottled water you’re storing for the Apocalypse that the people who would be prevented from driving to their homes (for a few minutes a day) would be delighted with my idea.
By the way, it would be impossible (and unnecessary) to prevent people from driving out of the drop-off zone.
@Sean, so then it would be possible to prevent people from driving in to the drop-off zone, just not out of the drop off zone. Pray tell, how would that be? Barricades? Police patrols? Deputized parents armed with giant whistles? I’ll grant you this Sean, you’re a great source of the lulz. Thanks for the morning chuckle, but I’ll leave you now to keep working on your vision of a world free of “mechanized weekly lawn care”.
Lisa asks:
How are one-way streets enforced? How are no-right turns enforced? How are blue zone restrictions enforced? How are time-bound parking and traffic restrictions (no turn between 6 and 8, for instance) enforced?
We seem to be living short of a police state and manage to enforce lots of restrictions on travel.
One way to prevent traffic in front of Oak Hill and Brown:
* Do not enter eastbound on Wheeler at Sharpe
* No right turn onto Wheeler from Sharpe
* Do not enter northbound Meadowbrook at Country Club
* No right turn onto Meadowbrook from Hartmann or Country Club (westbound)
* No left turn onto Meadowbrook from Fox Hill, Fox, or Country Club (eastbound)
All those restrictions would be temporary, during peak periods. I’d consider no turn onto Wheeler from Parker, too. There need be no restrictions for travel away from the schools.
All it takes is a handful of signs and the assumption that most of the community is law-abiding.
There’s no swimming at Cronin’s Cove. How well does that work out? There’s no stopping in the rotary in front of Brown Middle School. Any idea how many parents ignore that sign? Loads. Every playground has a sign prohibiting unleashed dogs – ever notice how many people ignore those signs? Too many to count. There’s no left turn into or out of Tiger Drive in front of Newton North, but it’s hard to see the sign because it’s been run over so many times. Plus, there wasn’t a single time that the police tried to enforce it until I complained after seeing a car almost plow into a group of children in the cross walk. Driving the wrong way on a one way street is a traffic infraction which will net you a two point surcharge on your auto insurance and a fine. I can’t speak to your driving experiences, but I find that I’m living in a city where people regularly and consistently ignore speed limits, try to cheat parking meters and refuse to stop for pedestrians in cross-walks. I’d be happy to see a kinder, gentler Newton when it comes to the civil courtesies which make a community more livable, but sadly in this “me-first” community I don’t have the same faith as you do in the law-abiding nature of this community.
Part of the problem is we too frequently pass unenforceable ordinances, where, because we don’t enforce them, folks learn it’s OK to ignore regulations across the board. I say don’t pass an ordinance unless you are willing to enforce it.