04/22/1996 Council Minutes - Laserfiche WebLink

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COUNCIL MEETING APRIL 22, 1996 improvement. He said that it is always possible that the walking trail could be constructed outside of the roadway, however that would be costly and would have to go through the normal budgeting process. Ms. Kent said that the most important issue here is safety for the kids. How can they expect to walk on a road that has 40 to 45 mph traffic daily plus increase in volume with the new middle school. That is out of the question. Ms. Kent said that St. Joseph Church is sitting at one of the major intersections on Elm Street. They have a large congregation and it is growing as the City grows. That will cause major congestion. Mr. Ahrens said that he plans to work with the Public Works Superintendent to put stripes on Second Avenue. At this time, only the center line is marked. Lane markers will be striped so that cars will not drive in the area marked for walkers and bikers. Ms. Kent asked how the children would safely get across Elm Street if all the bus traffic is going onto Elm Street. Mr. Ahrens said that the crossing will be just west of the access road for the bus traffic. The majority of the bus traffic will be coming from Lake Drive and making a right turn into the middle school before the pedestrian crossing. This will be a start of the school speed zone. Mr. Houle explained that there are identified walk areas to all of the school building in the Centennial School District. These walk areas are not necessarily for one mile. There is a community of individuals who review all these areas for certain safety requirements. The safety criteria is a scoring system depending on the environment that is out there. Therefore it is not automatic that all those children on the south end of Second Avenue are going to be walkers because they fall within that one mile distance. Elements that are considered in the formula are how busy are the streets that cross, are sidewalks available, are the roads county roads, width of roads, are there curbs or bends in the roads and relative distance. He referred to Mr. Ahrens comments regarding the type of sidewalks and when will they be installed and said hopefully some of those things will be in place before the middle school is ready for occupancy. If they are not ready and the area does not meet the Centennial Schools requirements or criteria for a safe walk area, the children will be bused. Mr. Houle noted the other concern about how will the children be safe crossing Elm Street to the middle school. They would be crossing Elm Street west of the area where buses will be turning. He said the children will also have to cross a bus traffic lane on the middle school site. The School District is looking at placing a stop sign to stop the buses to make sure that the kids have a safe access to the middle school. Council Member Lyden asked if the City Council could explore the idea of putting a stop sign on Elm Street at Second Avenue and also extend a walking trail coming north on Second Avenue straight across Elm Street and access the middle school at this point getting the kids away from the traffic on Elm Street. Brian Goula, Whippoorwill - Mr. Goula said that he did not think that the citizens are aware that a park will be constructed on the middle school property. He said he thought that the City and the School District will build this park jointly. Mr. Goula said that there should be more discussion regarding this park. He said that Council Member Lyden had PAGE 34