Introduction
You, as well as I, know that teenagers do not always make the best decisions while driving, to say the least. North Harrison High School students are no exception, either. I think you realize this and have taken precautions, such as speed bumps, to prevent accidents, but there is one area that I feel has been neglected. I am referring to the area of parking known as the “overflow” lots near the football field concession stand (see Figure 1). Here, I find many hazards:
The absence of a sidewalk for pedestrians to use
A lack of signs and safety devices for pedestrians
People backing out into the road
A deficiency of parking blocks
Students driving exceedingly fast
Too much overall congestion
I parked in this area a total of around ten times my senior year (2001-02), and I narrowly escaped being in an accident at least three times. In addition, the only time I felt comfortable was when I waited a while for most of the other students to leave the lot before I did. I never had a really close call when I was walking to or from my vehicle, but I had to watch very carefully for traffic and never felt very secure.
I observed students departing the area after school on Friday, November 15, 2002 to be sure nothing had changed. I found out that just about nothing has. In fact, I saw good evidence for my claim that this area is dangerous. One student in the West Overflow Lot seemed to get impatient, so she forced her way into the road. This caused a slight backup, and in the short time the person was shifting gears, the person behind her was trying to go around to pass.
I am not alone in feeling the area is dangerous. When I asked Mark Kiesler, one of my classmates who regularly parked in the area, if he thought it was dangerous, he enthusiastically said it was. He particularly pointed out the speed at which students often drove (Kiesler).
I understand the world is not perfect and is filled with danger, which is why we as people have to be careful even in our daily living. On the other hand, I also believe people need to take precautions to try to lessen daily dangers. In the case of the overflow parking area, I feel that a lack of safety devices for pedestrians combined with an unsafe parking design is putting students at risk for accidents, which could result in anything from fender benders to death. Fortunately, it is my belief that this is one of those threats that can be alleviated rather easily, and I have constructed a proposal that would do just that.
Problem
Pedestrians
A major danger has to do with the fact that there is no sidewalk from the North Parking Lot to the overflow lots (see Figure 2 below). This leaves students with a choice: walk on grass (which is often wet in the mornings) and then a mixture of gravel and very irregular concrete or walk on the road, which is often filled with vehicles in which students are rushing to get home or to class on time. The safer route is to walk beside the road, of course, but at one point the fence surrounding the lagoon comes within about a yard of the edge of the road, making for an uncomfortable squeeze when a car is passing by. Many students choose to walk on the road. This is frightening to me as an onlooker and a driver, knowing how much damage a vehicle can do to a person, even at low speeds. One reason students choose to walk on the road instead of beside it is they like to walk in packs, and there is not enough room for all of them between the road and the fence. Another reason may be to avoid getting their shoes wet or dirty, since some people spend ridiculous amounts of money on them. I realize this is not a good reason to walk on the road. Nonetheless, I do believe this is one reason students do it, and it puts them in danger.
A second problem strictly with pedestrians is the lack of signs where they cross the road to go into the North Parking Lot. I realize a speed bump has been installed down the road since last year, but students may still come through the area where pedestrians cross the road at speeds of over 20 miles per hour. Also, vehicles coming from the north might not see students in the road because of the turn (see Figure 2 below).
The absence of a crosswalk to the West Overflow Lot constitutes another problem because students cross from one side of the road to the other wherever they please. This adds to the congestion and means drivers have to be extra careful in watching for walkers, which high school students do very well, anyway.
Design
One design flaw in this parking area has to do with the orientation of the parking spaces in the West Overflow Lot. As of now, the spaces are perpendicular to the road, which forces people to back out of these spaces into the road. Directly after school, this is a great hazard. A steady stream of cars coming from the south along with pedestrians on both sides of the road leave little time for people to back out. This forces people to make unwise decisions and reckless maneuvers, as I observed.
The problem is compounded by how the road and the East Overflow Lot are continuously connected. No parking blocks separate any of the spaces from the road, which allows students to pull out from anywhere. A possibility here is that two people could pull out simultaneously in opposite directions, resulting in a crash. This very scenario very nearly happened to me last year, but thankfully, both vehicles stopped before a collision. I understand that if collisions such as these occurred, they would be at very low speed. Nevertheless, they could turn out to be very expensive and surprisingly injurious to the people involved.
Solution
Pedestrians
To solve the problem that there is not a sidewalk, I would add on to the pavement on the east side of the road between the road and the fence. I would also extend this pavement “sidewalk” past the fence all the way up to the East Overflow Lot (see Figure 3). A white stripe would need to be painted to distinguish the road from the walkway. In addition, diagonal stripes may need to be put on part of this area to ensure no one parks here.
The reason for simply adding pavement instead of making a separate sidewalk is convenience. In order to make a “real” concrete sidewalk, the fence would probably have to be taken out and moved over, and I think adding the pavement is much easier. This way may not be quite as safe as a sidewalk, but I believe it would get the job done in this case because both vehicles and pedestrians have their own spaces rather than having to share a space intended for vehicles only.
To ensure the safety of pedestrians as they cross the road into the North Parking Lot, I would add one speed bump on each side of the road and one pedestrian sign on each side of the road (see Figure 3). The speed bumps would be sure to slow all vehicles down, and the signs should give more respect to pedestrians as well as tell why the speed bumps are there. This should truly give walkers the right-of-way.
I would also add a designated crosswalk to the West Overflow Lot and add two road-wide speed bumps at the ends of the West Overflow Lot zone (see Figure 3). With the crosswalk, drivers would only have to watch one particular place more closely, instead of having to dodge a few students here and a few students there. The speed bumps would reduce the speeds of drivers, thus, reducing the risk of accidents.
Design
As for parking in the West Overflow Lot, I propose to have the perpendicular spaces changed to parallel and put them as far as possible on the side of the road. This would accomplish two things. First, it would keep students from having to back out into the road, which leads to frustration and impatience in all drivers. Second, the parallel spaces would widen the road, making the area less congested and giving pedestrians more room on the shoulders to walk.
I realize making this change would reduce the number of parking spaces. However, the East Overflow Lot has plenty of open spaces on school days and could easily accommodate the extra vehicles. For football games, more people may have to park in the lots next to the school, but I do not see any problem with this at all.
You also might be concerned about the ability of inexperienced drivers to safely use these spaces. To account for this inexperience, I would make the spaces slightly larger than normal. Also, students seem to handle the parallel spaces in the Northeast Parking Lot okay. These spaces would also give the students a chance to practice on this skill in order to prepare for parallel parking in the “real world.”
The last improvement of this proposal is to use parking blocks to separate the road from the East Overflow Lot. Twenty spaces now exist along the road, so I would place a parking block at the end of each space. This would leave one place at each end for both incoming and outgoing traffic, which I think is much safer than the existing setup.
Costs
I realize you do not have access to an endless flow of money to pay all the school corporation’s expenses and have kept that in mind as I made up this proposal. Of course, there are cheaper ways to try to correct this traffic problem, such as putting several speed bumps throughout the whole area. However, I think several speed bumps would just be another distraction in an already congested area. In addition, cost should not be the main concern. Safety should be the number one priority, and I believe this proposal accounts for both safety and expenses. Also, the $1600 for this proposal should not be too much of a setback if the recent improvements you have made, such as the new baseball field and football field, indicate the amount of money available. If you do question whether this proposal would cost too much, though, compare its price with that of
someone’s life. See the table below for a summary of fees.
Summary of Fees2 pedestrian signs / 2 galvanized sign posts / 6 short speed bumps / 20 parking blocks / striping paint / paving
$80*
(Signs: Regulatory) / $40
(Signs: Traffic) / $360
(Speed) / $400
(Parking) / $25 (Hydrophast) / $700 (Elbert)
*prices are approximate
Justification
Being the school board, one of your main concerns should be the safety of your students. I think you have proven this is true with the recent improvements you have made, particularly those of you who were responsible for the parking lot renovation in 2001. I think this is a similar situation. Before the 2001 renovation, people realized how dangerous the bus drop-off zones were even though no one had gotten injured in them. They realized something needed to be done before an accident occurred, and the board acted by overhauling the whole front lot. Now, I believe I have spotted a potential problem and think action needs to be taken in the near future. I don’t know about any of you, but I sometimes find myself thinking, “Man, I wish I would have seen that coming.” Do not catch yourselves thinking the same thing a few years down the road. Please seriously consider this proposal and take some action before a tragedy occurs.