What to do with the blue zone? That’s the big question regarding safety and traffic flow at the under-construction Zervas Elementary School. The discussion is equal parts encouraging and maddening. The answer should be simple: in the interest of safety and other considerations, do not add capacity.
What’s maddening? Where to start? Here are the transportation goals, as articulated by the city-engaged traffic engineers:
- Manage vehicle congestion on Beethoven Avenue
- Minimize delay at intersection of Beacon Street/Beethoven Avenue/Evelyn Road
- Increase pedestrian accessibility within study area
- Facilitate student drop-off and pick-up
- Provide emergency vehicle access to Beethoven Avenue during drop-off and pick-up
Notice anything missing? If you answered “an explicit recognition that children’s safety is the top priority and cannot be compromised,” you win. At a community meeting, the traffic engineers explained that their aim was to balance among these unranked goals. When asked why there was no mention of children’s safety as a goal, they said that it was implicit in the third bullet: increase pedestrian accessibility within study area.
So safety is not important enough to call out on its own and is but one goal among many, including minimizing traffic delays. Crazy. It’s mind-boggling that the City’s engagement with the traffic engineer didn’t specify uncompromised safety as the City’s overwhelmingly first priority. It’s mind-boggling that the City engaged a traffic engineering firm that wouldn’t just assume safety is the City’s overwhelmingly first priority. As we’ll see shortly, it’s not just that safety was left off the bullet list, it’s seriously compromised in the designs proposed.
There’s another goal, more subtle but related to safety, that is also left off the bulleted list of goals (and out of the designs): discouraging driving. As School Committee member Steve Siegel so nicely articulated at the same meeting I attended, the street design isn’t just going to determine how vehicle traffic flows, it is going to shape the decisions families make about how children get to school. Make driving an attractive option and parents will be more likely to drive, increasing the number of cars out front of school, reducing the perceived (and actual) safety for children walking, encouraging more families to drive. Make driving less attractive, less convenient, parents will be discouraged, increasing the number of children walking or taking the bus, reducing the number of cars, making walking a more attractive option.
The City may not be able to prevent you from driving your child to school, but it certainly doesn’t have to make it as easy as possible. A City goal should be to reduce vehicle trips to school to promote safety, health, the environment, and neighborhood impact.
So what about the designs? The three proposed designs increase capacity — the number of cars that can flow through the drop-off/pick-up zone in a given amount of time. As we’ll see, the design elements that increase capacity reduce safety. Direct correlation. And, again more subtly, increased capacity, as Steve noted, induces demand. This is a very powerful concept that needs to be front-and-center in the discussion: the more cars that can get through, the likelier that folks are to drive.
As background, the pre-construction blue zone was simply the northbound (heading toward Beacon) travel lane on Beethoven. Traffic (through or dropping-off) was supposed to stopped behind cars in the blue zone disgorged their pint-sized passengers and moved on. As a practical matter, though, traffic would go into the southbound lane to get around the dropping-off cars and some parents/care-givers would actually drop children off heading northbound in the southbound lane, putting children at risk of being hit by cars pulling out of the designated blue zone.
Of the proposed street designs, Option 1 and 2 create an off-street blue zone on Beethoven (northbound, heading toward Beacon): the “bump-in.” Option 1 extends the bump-in farther than Option 2. The supposed benefit is that through traffic can go by the blue zone, increasing capacity and through-put. As a practical matter, though, this 
option is likely to exacerbate the previously unsafe conditions. There will now be space for two or even three lanes of drop-off, putting more kids walking in front of more cars pulling out into even crazier traffic patterns. Additionally, the bump-in will cost $400K (to move utility poles and make curb changes), money which could be used on nearby streets and intersections to increase safety. And, the bump-in will eat up valuable real estate that could be used for a wider sidewalks and/or a bigger buffer between children and traffic.
Even if we grant that the blue zone would work as designed — parents would only drop off in the blue zone, not the travel lane — the bump-in design fails because, by its very success, it would increase flow and induce demand. It will lead to more driving, exactly what we don’t want in front of our schools and in the neighborhoods around our schools. And, it will permanently widen the street, making it likelier that people will speed outside of drop-off and pick-up times.
A variant of Option 2 (call it Option 3) features a smaller bump-in and adds a dedicated right-turn lane at the corner of Beethoven and Beacon. The purpose of the right-turn lane is to get more cars through the green-light cycle. Again, more capacity.
The major downside to the design is that it would increase the length of the crosswalk across Beethoven by 11 feet, which increases the time that children and others are in the crosswalk, exposed to traffic. Short crosswalks are safer for pedestrians. Maddeningly, the presenting traffic engineer downplayed the reduced pedestrian safety by saying that the crosswalk would be no longer than one of the other crossings.
The goal of the design should be to make all crosswalks as safe as possible, not to make them no worse than the worst.
The other significant downside is the reduction in the landing zone at the corner nearest the school. In essence, it reduces capacity for pedestrians for the benefit of drivers. The bump-in is a similar tradeoff in capacity. A wider sidewalk just accommodates more people, strollers, scooters, bikes, &c.
Option 3 is really the complete triumph of cars over people.
Another option along Beethoven northbound (not shown): maintain the status quo. No bump-in or dedicated right-turn lane. No increase in car capacity, which allows for more human capacity (wider sidewalk). Reduced potential of multiple drop-off lanes. Explore options to prevent northbound traffic from going into the southbound lane. Establish a clear priority for safety over convenience, for reducing traffic to and around schools over convenience.
Councilor John Rice, it should be noted, proposed a compromise of sorts: don’t change the street design, but make the last block of Beethoven (north of Puritan) two lanes of one-way traffic (northbound) during drop-off and pick-up times. It’s a clever idea which generates increased capacity only when needed. (A big problem with increased capacity for school drop-off and pick-up is that it just invites faster driving and cut-through during non-peak times. Not good for the neighborhood.) But, ultimately, it’s a capacity-generating proposal, which will increase the likelihood of kids being dropped off in one lane and then cutting across a lane of traffic to get to the curb.
We just need to make safety the number one priority and not subject to compromise for convenience. In fact, convenience, capacity, flow should not be priorities, except in the negative sense. We should make driving inconvenient, reduce capacity, diminish flow. We should not make it more attractive to drive.
I look forward to the inevitable comments that this is an excessively rigid perspective, that we need to accommodate the needs of everyone in the community, that compromise is necessary. I just disagree. We should not compromise children’s safety. And, the values in this situation are in conflict. Convenience comes at the expense of safety.
There are important values at issue here: children’s safety, children’s health, the environment, the neighborhood. Why should we compromise those values? To make it easier to drive kids to school?
Safety a top priority? Remember who you’re dealing with. This School Committee still thinks tackle football is an appropriate school sport. If they’re willing to totally ignore the traumatic brain injuries and lifelong orthopedic issues associated with football, is safety ever going to be a top priority for them?
Sean-I don’t even know how to respond to your accusation that student safety is not the top priority. Traffic engineers talk about just that – traffic. It’s implied in their job description that they’re trying to get people from point A to point B safely. And to imply that any city employee or elected official does not see student safety as the top priority is unfounded and unfair.
Zerves at present has a small school population. When the new school opens the numbers will increase significantly. Many children will be redistricted to Zervas to alleviate overcrowding at Bowen. Many families will opt to transport their children themselves which will easily cause more traffic congestion. If safety becomes a problem few parents will allow their children to walk alone near the school site. If Beacon St becomes jammed up in the mornings people will avoid the main road and use the residential streets to cut through to other major crosstown roads.
@Sean: You are upset about the Blue Zone but not upset that the City spent millions of dollars to purchase modestly priced and sized homes and demolished them to add parking capacity? The school is clearly designed for drivers and do you understand why? Because it no longer is a school designed to accommodate the immediate neighborhood. As we increase density in this City for housing, we have to increase our school capacity and because the City is not increasing (adding) additional elementary schools, it has decided to make the existing neighborhood schools much bigger to encompass areas that are currently overcrowded and over capacity. That means – more people will be driving their kids to school rather than walking because they simply live too far away. That’s why it is so critical to consider the impacts on schools when we talk about increasing housing density.
Jane, traffic engineers are very much responsible for movement and safety of ALL roadway and sidewalk users. Any traffic engineer worth his salt nowadays understands complete streets and the perils of car-centric design.
I have the same observations as Sean. Many public officials have flatly stated that they’re making motorist convenience a priority, and refuse to say the words we want to hear, that student safety is #1. You can’t have it both ways.
@amysangiolo: it is what it is. The school is bigger, the district is larger, and more people are beyond a reasonable walking distance. Now, the task is to make sure the people who already can walk to school feel comfortable doing so, or things will be worse than anyone imagined.
Jane,
Let’s put aside intention and focus on process and outcomes. The process lacks safety as an explicit priority. At the community meeting, the traffic engineers said that safety was implicit in one goal, a goal that was to be balanced against other goals, including driver convenience. And, the outcome reflects the process, each of the designs presented compromises safety for some other interest. This isn’t a matter of opinion or fairness. A longer crosswalk is inherently less safe. A road with more capacity in response to demand is inherently less safe.
The problem is that the traffic engineers here thought like traffic engineers have traditionally: how do we move more cars. More progressive traffic engineers understand the larger picture. And, the problem is that the city’s decision-makers — the school principal, the school committee, the building committee — didn’t force the traffic engineers to think less about cars and drivers and more about the rest of the community.
Getting this right is going to require a big shift in the way people think. Some, like Steve Siegel and Deb Crossley, are beginning to get it. Others, like this particular set of traffic engineers, do not seem to get it. Until we hold the folks who don’t get it accountable for the design outcomes, we’re going to get wholly inadequate designs like these.
I’m indifferent to the various intentions that resulted in these options. What matters is that these are not safety-first designs.
Amy, my friend,
You know full well that I complained bitterly about the purchase of the private homes to provide parking. You also know full well that I have been saying for years that density is coming, whether we want it or not, and it’s foolish to say the schools lack capacity as if there’s nothing we can do about it when it has been fully within the city’s ability to get ahead of this and add capacity. And, you also know full well that I have been a vocal proponent of building additional schools to maintain a city of neighborhood schools.
We lost some important battles. Now, there’s a battle over a stinking blue zone. That demand, due to decisions with which I don’t agree, is higher than it should be doesn’t change the fact that we shouldn’t add capacity.
As for the future, let’s stop pretending that the school capacity issue is a meaningful one when considering increased density. The reality is that we’re going to get density whether we want it or not. If we get the density before we have added school capacity thoughtfully, then it’s our own damn fault.
Always remember: Cassandra was right.
Here is a comment I have been waiting to make in one of the Zervas meetings. The NPS was all about the Growth Mindset, challenging our children to open their minds to doing something differently and hopefully getting better at it. How are we going to get better at transportation if we keep doing the same thing? Making blue zones bigger and prioritizing vehicle throughput over all other design considerations. Lets adopt a growth mindset when it comes to how our students get to school. I for one believe we can design school transportaion that is safe, equitable and reasonably efficient, but only if we are willing to put in the effort and we work together as a community.
Is there no traffic mitigation plan?
Amy – The root of the problem lies in the decisions made over 30 years ago to sell off multiple school properties. Once the properties were gone (forever), we set in motion a fast moving train headed for a brick wall in a built-out city. The first elementary school modulars had to be put in place less than 10 years later (Cabot School) due to overcrowding and it’s only gotten much worse over time. In an earlier era, the overflow Cabot students would have attended the closed and sold Claflin School. The current school population is 2000 students over projections made in 2007 (school enrollment report), so I’m not exactly sure where people expect these students to go to school. We can’t take any park land – that was made very clear with the Cabot School situation.
The real health and safety issues in Newton’s schools for the last 2 decades relate to overcrowding in the elementary schools. The problem has been masked by the purchase of multiple modulars that do not increase the common spaces necessary to provide adequate student services.
That’s all old material. What I object to is the self righteous tone toward a group of people who’ve been handed an impossible situation – then treated like they don’t care about kids. Everyone cares about the safety of the kids, and yes, it’s an underlying top priority whenever any decision is made about NPS. I attended one of the Zervas meetings and the people working on the beginning and end of the day issues listened well to input and wanted to come up with the best possible solution but realized that they were not fully there yet.
Kids need to be able to get to school safely. I think everyone knows that is a priority but I think it is unrealistic to create a blue zone and traffic plan that needs to force people to dramatically change their behavior. You can encourage better behavior but if a blue zone is built that can’t handle a reasonable capacity considering the increased capacity of the school you are going to create an unsafe situation. If you do this it is going to be a situation where people are going to look back and wonder why it was set up the way it was and what the planners were thinking because it will create a disaster. People are going to be in more of a rush and make erratic unsafe decisions if the blue zone does not have reasonable capacity. I have seen quite a bit of bad behavior in blue zones. You wish people would realize that their behavior is putting kids at risk but they are focused on themselves. Behavior needs to change over time. Honestly I would love it if my kids could take the bus home everyday but it takes my elementary aged child 45 minutes to get home and this past year we had a commitment that required us to leave the house no later than 3:30. The bus also used to get my kids to school late or very close to the official start time which bothered them. So something to think about is creating reasonable travel time for the kids to and from school. We want kids spending their time learning or having free time to play not sitting on the bus.
Jane This situation is not impossible. The problem here is no one in charge has comprehensively looked at transportation for the new school. Designs and projections only go a few hundred feet from the front door. If this were a new commercial building that wouldn’t fly. The builders would be working on traffic flow analysis a mile away. They would be developing a traffic mitigation plan. Our schools attract a lot of people and vehicles. We should do the same for them. Zervas is well situated with a grid of streets all with sidewalks and potentially easily accessible short walks from each direction for parents who chose to drive. The proposed blue zone bump in will likely not make the situation any better AND it will cost at least $400k. To put that in perspective that is 2.5 times what the city spends paving sidewalks in a year. How can that not be getting people’s attention? There is no reason to rush this decision. The projection for new students is a slow uptick. The city should step back and do a real study. And take the neighbors concerns more seriously.
As for parkland, the current Cabot sight plan is using parkland for a teacher lot (and the commission left open the door to revisit making the lot even bigger if needed) one that the planners said they needed without even analyzing other options like neighborhood parking.
As budgets are tighter, climate change is here, our roads become more crowded, we need to challenge assumptions. And if some of us seem self righteous, well it does get frustrating when you keep revisiting the same issues again and again without the progress we should have. We are a city full of smart people. We should start acting like it.
And Newton will continue to grow and we will continue to attract families with school aged families. Bigger schools seems to be what the city officials want now. . . . . many houses I drive by that were once single family homes are now 2-4 town homes. And now one single family house (what used to be 2-3 kids) is now 2-4 town homes with around two kids each (8 kids). Those kids will need to go to school. EVEN if we had enough neighborhood schools (we don’t), the current answer is bussing, and not all parents want to put their kids on the bus.
We need to think long term strategy, which I don’t believe our city leaders do often, because so often we have time deadlines (oops, the shed doesn’t have heat and needs modulars ASAP) that we let go on for too long.
The issue about how to get kids to and from school safely will continue to increase once every school hits 400 students. Gone are the days where we walk to school . . . . because kids live beyond a 20 minute walk because our schools are too far apart.
Newton Mom. I am with you most of the way especially linking this decision to one that was made because there isn’t enough time to plan. I challenge “gone are the days where we walk to school”. Zervas has a strong walking cohort. The super frustrating thing about this proposal it prioritizes the convenience of people using the blue zone (which is a minority of the people) over the safety and convenience of kids walking or coming from cars parked further away. A widened Beethoven in the end could make parents feel less safe about walking or walking from parking spots further away, thus bringing even more traffic onto Beethoven. I believe Zervas could be a model for safe and convenient student transportation.
Jane, I remember the school closings well. Call me self-righteous all you like. The constraints certainly are challenging, but student safety was only mentioned in the slides as a priority after outcry from Safe Routes. There are no policies for dealing with competing transportation interests, and that’s at the core of the problem. Each time we design a new school, we have the same discussion. Some of the early car-centric plans presented by the team Newton hired clearly did not meet safety goals and never should have even been put on the table. I don’t know how you can make excuses for that.
Alicia,
Please let me clairfy . . . . if you build giant schools and expect to use Buffer Zones (Bowen and Countryside), those kids will never be able to walk to school. Either those kids take a bus or their parents drive them. When we build schools that accomodate neighboring schools, then there are more kids driving and less walking.
I’ve often heard it bemoaned that the City should never have sold off several old, unused school buildings. No one who understands the maintenance and upkeep of institutional size buildings would ever make that argument. Large empty structures cost nearly as much to maintain as fully operational buildings. Where was the City going to get the money to keep buildings like Weeks and Warren from deteriorating over the time they were empty? We went through more than a decade deferring maintenance on buildings we were actually using.
I’m with safety first – all the way!
Back to the drop-off options – if, like Sean says, Beethoven is kept as two lanes, couldn’t a buffer of some kind (small median, attractive separation) be put between the northbound and southbound lanes.
This would keep those in a hurry from crossing into the southbound lane and the inconvenience of waiting for kids to be dropped off would probably cause them to go another way.
It also might encourage parents who need to drive their kids to school to drop them off a block or so away and also lead to more parents letting their kids take the bus where the drop off is in a safer location.
If some parents still dropped off their kids in the southbound lane, the kids would walk to the cross walk to cross the street. Seems like that solution would lessen the traffic on Beethoven and create a much safer way to get to school.
Right now is what matters! It is hard for me to understand why anyone would not want the safest solution and is using up the time left to create the safest possible solution with arguing about the past. I don’t understand why safety isn’t all you are thinking about in this situation when everytime something tragic happens, such as at Sweet Tomato’s in West Newton, the cry is why was this location not already made safer so this tragedy could not have happened.
I know the history here. If we don’t quit the squabbling about who did or said what, why didn’t we do something else and everything else, nothing will be addressed while there is still a chance
and some day it will be others complaining about the exact same things.
There are many reasons the school zones are the way they are. This is something I feel NPS did an amazing job analyzing and making concious decisions on. I wish they would put that sort of effort into how students arrive and leave school. Sandy Guryan in her parting letter to the ZSBC said NPS needs a School Transportation Policy (I’ll ignore the part where she said it could wait until after the Zervas was done). We have time. Now we need the willpower. The pieces are there. The Comprehensive Plan and the Transportaion Advisory Committee addressed he need to reduce vehicle impact on schools.
Questions we need to answer for Zervas? To what extent should the city be enabling parents to drive right to the front door of the school especially when this could only ever be a minority of the parents? As a community is this really the best expenditure of $400k? Whose opinion is more important, some parents who feel inconvenienced by backups during drop off /pick up or the other families that are impacted by making the blue zone more efficien? What about the neighbors who will live with the safety impact of those changes? What work has been done to explore other options for student arrival and dismissal?
The question we need to start with as a community is far simpler. Should NPS have a policy which prefers that students arrive by bus, on foot, or by bicycle, aiming to reduce, not encourage auto use? The rest follows from there. Safe Routes has already encouraged simple changes, like memos which now begin “if you drive your child to school…” instead of “when you drive your child to school…”
Alicia – Just to be clear, I oppose the bump out blue zone. It’s another example of presentism we should avoid in decision making. In 10-15 years,the city may very well regret the bump out that cost $400,000 and not be willing to put another $400,000 to remediate the problem.
Mike – The city should have leased at least 4 of the buildings/properties – Hyde, Emerson, Claflin and Weeks . In less than ten years, the elementary schools began to encounter overcrowding issues in the elementary schools and needed to purchase modulars. Ten years!The closed schools the city didn’t sell were fully leased until such time as they were needed but the public land that was sold is gone forever. Yet people continue to blame the current administration and School Committee for serious mistakes of the past.