Duane Hicks
Safe Communities Rainy River District is making improved traffic safety around area schools a high priority in the year ahead.
The board passed a motion at its annual general meeting Nov. 22 to take on the role as co-ordinator to help connect stakeholders to various resources.
The direction for Safe Communities Rainy River District to take the lead role stemmed from a meeting held Nov. 17, where parent council members, school administration, town officials, and committees focusing on safety and prevention gathered to begin looking at identifying their traffic safety concerns and how to go about addressing them.
“We’re trying to get a co-ordinated effort going,” said Grace Silander, co-ordinator of Safe Communities Rainy River District, adding that preventing falls will be the other top priority for the group in 2012.
“As we move ahead and as plans are made, we can do a collaborative effort in order to receive a funding grant of some sort,” she noted.
“And I am sure it will be looked at a lot more favourably if it’s a joint effort versus one school here and one school there.
“We’re going to try really hard to co-ordinate them all together,” Silander explained. “However, not everyone is going to have to do the same thing.
“Each school will be able to do their own planning to identify their own risks, their own needs, and work on those.
“However, the ultimate goal is safety, and therefore the end goal is the same,” she reasoned.
Silander clarified that Safe Communities Rainy River District is taking a lead role as a co-ordinator, but not necessarily a leadership role overall.
“Everyone will own their own programs,” she stressed. “What we would like them to do is share plans, advancements, so everybody can move along nicely.
“In the end, Safe Communities Rainy River District will look for a good funding grant,” she added. “We’ve got some ideas on smaller ones, but it’s going to take a lot of money to get it going—a substantial amount.”
Each school is different, but possible ways to address traffic concerns could range from signage to the “Kiss ’N Ride” program—where each school has a safe drop-off and pick-up area for those children getting rides from caregivers.
Attendants then escort the students safely from that area to the school, an vice-versa.
The Nov. 17 traffic safety
meeting was very productive, said local OPP Community Services Officer Cst. Anne McCoy.
“We had the parent councils identify their top three traffic
concerns or issues,” she noted. “We explained the problem identification and community assessment process of the data collection and data analysis.
“We [also] gave them some options and viable solutions, including the ‘Kiss ’N Ride’ program, which is successful in over half-a-dozen schools in the Thunder Bay area,” Cst. McCoy added.
She said Tom Marinis, co-ordinator of MTO Road Safety Programs, actually has worked with those schools in Thunder Bay and could speak first-hand as to the success of that program.
Marinis and Kelly Schmid (MTO Head Traffic Section) toured all four local elementary schools and identified some of the concerns they had.
“Consistently across the board, traffic congestion is a priority,” said Cst. McCoy. “Safe crossings and sidewalks, or lack thereof, is a priority.
“And the fact that there are ‘no parking’ signs but people are stopping is a priority.
“Certainly, the ‘Kiss ’N Ride’ program would be a viable solution,” she remarked.
Problems identified at the four elementary schools were as follows:
Robert Moore
•With no crossing guard, the children are unsupervised and crossing at several points along Crowe Avenue in a highly-congested traffic area;
•The school continues to have issues with buses turning right off of Fourth Street and then heading south on Crowe (this area is where the major amount of the congestion is during drop-off and pick-up times);
•Crowe Avenue remains a highly-congested traffic area. Vehicles are not permitted to park in specified areas, but people are stopping and waiting for their children; and
•There is an issue with snow banks and snow clearance time (it was clarified at the Nov. 17 meeting that the school board, not the town, is responsible for this snow removal).
J.W. Walker
•There is a concern about the number of children crossing King’s Highway and the high volume of traffic increases the risk to children.
Under the Highway Traffic Act, no crossing guard is permitted to work at the crossing as it conflicts with the traffic signals (the parent council is still open to other possible options if one should come available);
•The traffic volume on Keating Avenue remains highly-congested during drop-off and pick-up times. The time frame is relatively short, but buses and vehicles are utilizing the same area.
There are 14 buses at Walker. Walker and St. Francis have co-ordinated their efforts in reducing the congestion problem by having the buses remain at St. Francis until the drivers receive word via radio that they can move ahead to Walker); and
•Children walking on Keating have to walk on the road as there is no sidewalk on either side of the roadway. In the winter, with snow banks, the walkers have to utilize the roadway (children are walking around vehicles well onto the roadway, especially in the winter months).
St. Francis
•There’s concerns about drop-offs and pick-ups. The school has tried to remedy some of the concerns by initiating a method of departure whereby the students who walk are put into groups and released from the school at five-minute intervals (i.e., the school bell rings in five-minute intervals to signal the students’ departure).
St. Michael’s
•The bus pull-off area accommodates one bus, but three buses must park in the area designated for one, and this adds to traffic congestion.
•There are no sidewalks on the east side of Frenette Avenue heading south from the school and on either side of Frenette heading north of the school, nor are there sidewalks heading west on Fifth Street East.
The teachers at this school have all the walkers wait together and cross at the same time (calendar parking is a problem when the parking is on the north side of Fifth Street East).
Cst. McCoy said the parent councils now are going back to their respective organizations, and will discuss what they learned from the Nov. 17 meeting.
They then will begin to collect data to support what their concerns are because they need “concrete evidence to identify and support the need for change.”
As noted above, Safe Communities Rainy River District will provide a leadership role to help connect all the parent councils and schools to the appropriate resources.
“Over the next few months, we will work with them to help get them the information or help get them the resources that they need,” noted Cst. McCoy.
She added the stakeholders will reconvene on Feb. 9 to see how far everyone has come.
“We’ll take it from there as to what the next steps will be,” Cst. McCoy said.
