Parents, officials seek fix for dangerous intersection

Parents of school children have feared for their kids' safety at the intersection of Locust Street and Highway 20 for years. Now they are getting local officials to do something about it.

Approximately 20 parents, teachers, school administrators, community leaders and representatives from the city, the sheriff's department and the Oregon Department of Transportation (ODOT) joined Sisters school board chairman Rob Corrigan and vice-chairman Steve Rudinsky early Thursday morning to find solutions for improving safety at the intersection.

The intersection is of special concern because it is adjacent to the elementary school at the east end of Sisters.

The consensus was that tangible steps must be taken almost immediately and that it should be possible to find and complete projects in a short period of time to improve children's safety at the intersection.

Joel McCarroll, ODOT's region traffic manager, said that from a traffic management standpoint it is not viable to install a stop sign on the highway at the intersection. As an alternative, McCarroll confirmed that ODOT would have no problem with the placement of a removable sign in the middle of the intersection.

The sign would be in place in the morning and again in the afternoon when children go to and from school.

"If you want to focus your emphasis on school kids, then having this out when school is going into session and coming out of session will make it pretty clear to everybody that that's kind of a special time," McCarroll reasoned. "The longer it stays out there, the more it's going to be taken in the background and forgot about."

The school district is investigating purchasing such a sign with the intention of using it as soon as it is received.

McCarroll explained ODOT's reason for not posting a school speed sign of 20 miles per hour on Highway 20 by the elementary school. He said that the speed limit in that area is already 20 miles per hour.

"My concern would be the mixed message," he said. "Because what you are in fact saying is 'slow down to 20 when school children might be present; don't bother otherwise.' The philosophy behind traffic control is that you have to provide a clear, consistent message."

An additional step might be using a uniformed officer as a crossing guard at the intersection before and after school. Deschutes County Sheriff's Sergeant Gary Decker explained that resources do not allow the sheriff's department to regularly assign a uniformed officer as a crossing guard.

"We hope we are being receptive to traffic concerns," Decker said.

He noted the speed car that has been assigned to Sisters as an example of how the department is attempting to bring awareness of the need to exercise extreme caution at the intersection. He added that there are seven different areas in Sisters that are high priority concerns to the sheriff's department, and Locust is one of them.

Deputy sheriff Don Pray is able to patrol the intersection from time to time.

The work session yielded a strong consensus to work toward closing the Locust Street crosswalk altogether and moving the crosswalk west to Cedar Street. To provide access to the elementary school, a trail would be constructed to flow past the school district's administration building to the present crosswalk at Cascade Avenue and Locust Street.

City manager Eileen Stein interjected that the city is about to design an East Cascade Avenue realignment. She suggested the possibility of expanding the realignment project to include the crosswalk at Cedar Street.

"That's one way we could get something done right away," she said.

When questioned if the city or ODOT would pay for this project, Stein replied, "Well, that's a delicate discussion."

McCarroll said, "We (ODOT) could look at participating, but I'm not going to write a blank check right now." He explained that ODOT's ability to participate could be affected by the amount of snow removal costs they have this winter.

He added, "We are committed to this, and we look for opportunities to do projects like this."

He said that funding from ODOT would be easier to come by if Sisters had or at least had started to develop a Safe Routes to School Plan. He then added that attaining ODOT's financial backing might be as simple as a letter from the school district that states: "We want to move our crossing guards from Locust to Cedar because we think it's safer."

By the end of the morning, only one firm decision had been made: to place a sign suggesting caution in the middle of the Highway 20 and Locust Street intersection.