Safer Routes to School

There was another community meeting in the neighborhood last week on the ongoing "Safe Routes to School" work going on in the neighborhood.  The work at the intersection of East Rock Springs, Pelham Road, and East Morningside seemed to have been largely stopped for months.  The design was being reconsidered, and changes might be made, we heard.  In the meantime, it seemed that nothing at all was happening.  I couldn't make it to the meeting on Tuesday morning, just like I have not made it to any of the other three meetings that have occurred, but at least the plans that are posted on line look like an improvement over the original design.  It looks like the lane that allows eastbound traffic from East Morningside to cut over to North Morningside without going through the 4-ways stop at the East Morningside/Pelham Road/East Rock Springs intersection will stay open for one-way traffic, which should help traffic flow substantially.

One of the reasons I have not been so excited about the Safe Routes to School work in the neighborhood (in spite of my strong interest in pedestrian safety) is that it had seemed to me to ignore an easy fix to one of the most obvious hazards, the absence of a crosswalk at Wessyngton and Cumberland.  If it wasn't obvious before, it was clearly marked in yellow paint just before school started, "CROSSWALK NEEDED HERE."  But there was no crosswalk.  There were elaborate makeovers requiring lots of construction of many neighborhood intersections, but nothing here.

Until now.  This morning, there were signs on Cumberland Road informing drivers that beginning the week of February 11, this intersection would be an all-way stop.  This is great news.  Now, if we can just get the crosswalk that goes with it, I'll stop complaining.