Lakota schools consider traffic safety measures after students were hit by cars

WEST CHESTER, Ohio – School district officials joined other local officials in answering urgent questions from the public after a series of traffic accidents involving students traveling to and from school, including one that killed a Lakota East freshman student.

A group of family members of the latest victims sat in the front row, hoping their loved ones would be the center of attention.

Christina Alcorn came to the meeting to represent her son, Aspen Runnels, who was hit and killed in May.

“I don’t want any part of my community to ever sit in the room that I sat in for 10 days as we waited for Aspen to find out if he was going to live, if he was going to die and what his life was like. “It will be look like that, and no one should have to sit in a room like that,” Alcorn said.

Candlelight vigil for Lakota East freshman who was struck by vehicle and is in critical condition

Trisha Parnell’s daughter was hit by a car near Lakota West High in 2018 and joined Alcorn in the front row. She said the discussion was productive but felt like it came after too much damage had already been done.

“It felt positive, but it feels slow,” Parnell said.

Lakota Superintendent Dr. Ashley Whitely opened the meeting with an update on several items that have been completed since she took office in July.

Whitely said they have already expanded the crosswalk at Lakota East and conducted a traffic study with the goal of reducing speeds outside the campus where Runnels was killed. As for Lakota West, the superintendent said they have installed lights around campus to improve the visibility of warning signs and have considered a half-dozen suggestions to improve safety in the area.

Seth Hagaman of the West Chester Police Department addressed questions from the crowd about the potential of using school resource officers to direct traffic and monitor intersections, saying it is not a viable solution to traffic control.

Hagaman said officers have duties to perform within the school during these periods.

County transportation engineer Matt Loeffler discussed a long list of possible infrastructure improvements near schools and questioned whether or not they would be legitimate solutions to protect children.

Loeffler said they already plan to add boundary lines in front of existing crosswalks. Pavement lighting had been suggested to the engineer’s office, but Loeffler called them “maintenance nightmares” that were not useful additions.

Speed ​​bumps or additional speed cushions were a popular suggestion from people in the audience, but Loeffler virtually wrote off that option.

He said that by law speed bumps or cushions are not permitted on roads with a speed limit above 30 miles per hour and that this speed limit is exceeded on all relevant roads.

As for lowering speed limits, the engineer said that was up to ODOT because by law they set speed limits based on recommendations from traffic studies.

Loeffler said they did several of these studies and the only speed limit that was eligible for a reduction from 40 to 35 mph was a section of West Chester Road between Eagle View Drive and Beckett Road.

He mentioned roundabouts and pedestrian bridges as options in some areas, depending on where they would fit, but that didn’t necessarily make sense because both options were expensive.

Rumble strips, the ridged pavement that makes a loud noise to warn drivers, took up much of Loeffler’s time as he tried to explain why they weren’t a suitable solution for streets like Bethany Road outside Lakota East Freshman.

“They can be quite a noise nuisance to residents or businesses in their area,” he said.

Loeffler said communities would have to get consent from everyone living or working nearby before they could install the strips.

Officer Hagaman noted the complexity of many of the proposals.

“As you can see, different problems arise in different disciplines, and there seems to be no one-size-fits-all solution,” Hagaman said. “If there was, I think we would have done it.”

Both Alcorn and Parnell said they hoped the joint meeting would lead to meaningful change in the school district, but they weren’t waiting for the district to resolve everything.

They have circulated a petition to pass Aspen’s law, which would make running over a person in a school zone a felony and double the penalties for traffic violations similar to those in construction zones.

Parnell plans to increase efforts to pass the law in the upcoming legislative session.