We are concerned for the safety of our son, as well as the safety of the other children who live within the one-mile radius of Hillcrest Elementary, mainly those of Highlands West and Shannon Forest.
We received a letter from the transportation department notifying us that our son would no longer have bus transportation to and from school this year. This letter contained a map of our neighborhood and the school district’s recommendation of travel for him. We drove our car along this path of recommendation. We were in shock and utter disbelief that the school district would have him walk such a path. There are no stop signs, cross walks, children crossing signs, school zone signs, etc. There is a stretch of dangerous road with no sidewalks. What disregard for child safety!
We live on Stroops Drive in Highlands West. Our street is not marked with stop signs, speed limit signs, children at play signs, etc. We contacted the City of Oak Harbor once the building of our house was complete about the possibility of getting such signs. We were told that the city would not put them in unless a need arose, meaning that an auto accident or child being hurt would have to happen before they would do something. Now we see that the school district is pulling the same thing.
Once you arrive at the top of Stroops Drive, you must cross right onto Putnam Drive. Is there a stop sign? Crosswalk? Anything? No, just a street sign.
Our student must then walk down Putnam Drive, across Roodzant with no stop signs or crosswalks.
Further on Putnam Drive you must cross left onto Roeder Drive. This means crossing the street again with no crosswalk, no speed limit signs, no school zone signs, nothing of the sort. Merely a dangerous three-way intersection with speeding cars from both directions on Putnam Drive, speeding cars on Roeder Drive (those having just turned off of Loerland.)
Then the student is to cross Roeder onto Ponsteen Drive. Is there finally a crosswalk? No. A blind corner from Putnam? A sharp corner from Loerland? Oh most definitely!
The student must then walk up the hill of Ponsteen Drive to Overway Drive. There no crosswalk there. Only a steep hill with dangerous ice and snow in the winter.
Then our student is to walk down Loerland Drive, along the shoulder of the road, right after a blind corner, with no sidewalk. There needs to be a sidewalk, school zone flashing lights and speed limit reduction signs prior to Overway Drive warning oncoming traffic both directions.
Then he is to walk across Loerland at the intersection of Heller Road. Yes, there is finally a crosswalk. But then he must proceed down another steep hill to NW Second Avenue. (Again there are no school zone warning signs on Heller Road, like those on Whidbey Avenue.) There is no crosswalk there. He walks around the corner onto NW Second Avenue on the left side of the road. Then he comes to Outrigger Loop with no crosswalk or crossing guard. Only after he crosses Outrigger Loop will there be a crossing guard.
What saddens us more is driving this route this evening. We finally noticed the student zone signs, no flashing lights, but school zone signs just within one block of the school. Broad View Elementary and Oak Harbor High School have flashing lights, school zone signs, plenty of police patrols, etc, all within nearly four-tenths of a mile before each school. Our school only has two signs within one block of the school.
We have learned that the Hillcrest neighborhood division streets all have stop or yield signs at each intersection. They do not have crosswalks, however traffic is required to stop at a stop sign. Our neighborhood has none.
We strongly believe that the school district transportation department needs to review its decision to cancel bus transportation for our neighborhood. Loerland Drive is a very dangerous road with automobile speeds nearly 45-50 miles an hour most of the time. How do we know? My husband works for Island County Sheriff’s Office and has investigated the number of speeding complaints taken along the cross streets of Loerland Drive. There have been hundreds of complaints and many more tickets written for speeding.
The letter states that they have representatives of Oak Harbor Police Department on their Safe Walking Conditions Committee. We sure hope that they agree that this route is not safe. We are members of the law enforcement family and parents of this neighborhood, under no circumstances will we ever agree to say this route is safe for children, or adults.
Did anyone on this boundary/transportation committee review these routes before making their decision? Did they walk the shoulder of Loerland at 8 a.m., experiencing the frightening and dangerous speeds of the cars zooming past them? Our guess is not. So why would they put our children in danger without experiencing it first for themselves?
Also, have they considered what these recommendations are going to do to their schools parent drop-off and pickup lines? Many parents refuse to let their child walk these routes. We will keep driving our children to and from school, causing the lines to be much more chaotic. This will in turn cause their employees to remain at the school for much longer periods of time, to ensure the safe delivery of our children to and from our cars at the beginning and ending of each day. Continued busing of local neighborhood children could eliminate most of this traffic.
We have sent digital pictures of these dangerous intersections to the principal of his school, since it appears no one from their committee has driven these routes, walked them or even ridden bicycles along them. We urged them to view these pictures from their offices. After viewing these pictures, we encouraged them to get out and walk the route for themselves in all types of weather. Then, and only then, tell us that they believe these routes are safe and sound for the children of this district.
Robert and Deidre Davison
Oak Harbor
