Hettrick: School traffic amuck?

Somehow I always seem to find myself driving down First Avenue near Dana or First Avenue Middle schools, down Holly Avenue near the elementary school, or down the roads surrounding the high school — Campus, Duarte Road, Santa Anita Avenue, or El Monte — right around 3 p.m. far too often.

by Scott Hettrick

It’s at these moments that I also seem to find myself cursing my stupidty for not paying attention to the time so that I could have run my errands 30 minutes earlier.

Last week when this happened again — it hit me that it was nearly 3 p.m. again as soon as I turned south on First Avenue from Duarte and had to be careful to avoid cars lined up for blocks from Dana — I happened to have my camcorder with me so I got out and videotaped the 50 or so vehicles in line as if they were waiting at the border checkpoint.

(Story continues below the following 75-second video.)

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Matt Denny’s Ale House Restaurant

It was a typical day but I’ve often seen it much worse. Sometimes I can’t even make the turn off Duarte south onto First Avenue because cars are lined up that far back from the school. Many times I’ve seen cars that are trying to go down the road slide over the center line into the oncoming lane to go around the cars that begin lining up a half-hour before school lets out, and often don’t get very close to the curb.

Worse, impatient parents and those whose kids walk up the street to meet them in line rather than wait in the parking lot, sometimes decide to get out of the line and pull out right in front of unsuspecting cars trying to navigate the narrowed road. And vehicles trying to access residences on the west side of First Avenue during this time, including construction vehicles, have to get in line with parents and wait for the line to start moving when school lets out after 3 p.m. (You’ll see some of this in the video.) Sometimes parents even block side streets entirely as they fear someone will cut in line if they don’t roll forward as the line begins to move.

I know similar situations play out at most other schools in Arcadia every day, and not only when schools are let out, but also in the mornings when parents double park as they drop off kids at Highland Oaks Elementary and elsewhere.

Amazingly and gratefully there seems to be few accidents involving vehicles or students and other pedestrians, but this seems like a tragedy waiting to happen during two half-hour windows twice a day at every school. The odds have to catch up to us eventually.

Several of the candidates running for City Council have mentioned traffic around the schools as an issue. Among the suggestions have been staggered pick-up times and zones where street parking and stopping is not allowed during those hours. Of course, there are ripple effects to any such change.

I don’t know if most people feel this is an issue. I suspect not. And I know parents seem very reluctant to put their kids on a bus or carpool multiple students or, God forbid, encourage their kids to walk or ride their bicycles to school.

From my personal standpoint it’s little more than a semi-frequent annoyance that I can live with and work around without much suffering. But surely a safer solution could be devised before someone gets seriously hurt, or before I forget to be home before 2:30 again and turn off Duarte only to smash into the rear-end of the last car in line sitting out in the middle of my lane. — By Scott Hettrick