Font Resize
Seniors announce their dominance as the class of 2010 in colorfully decorated cars, while police on motorcycles write tickets for illegal turns and other transgressions along busy streets near campuses.
Throughout the Bay Area, school is in session, bringing the usual crush of cars, buses, pedestrians and bicyclists headed to neighborhood campuses alongside commuters streaming to work.
Some campuses encourage carpooling, restrict parent drop-off areas and suggest that students walk or bike, which is healthy and good for the environment, but it puts students on foot amid the traffic.
"Sometimes, it's kind of scary," said Jahnay McGowen, 14, as she walked along busy Oak Grove Road after classes at Ygnacio Valley High School in Concord recently. "When you're in the crosswalk, sometimes cars don't want to stop."
Cities such as Walnut Creek are working to reduce carbon emissions by pumping money into Safe Routes to Schools sidewalk and intersection construction projects partially funded by the state. The Mt. Diablo district provides limited bus service at a cost to parents, despite reduced state transportation funding.
Lamorinda and the San Ramon Valley school district have started school bus service with Measure J transportation funding to ease congestion near schools and fight air pollution, in addition to County Connection bus service that helps youngsters get to campuses in most parts of Contra Costa County, said Amy Worth,
"One of the challenges we have in a lot of these older communities where you have narrow corridors is to provide safe bike and pedestrian access to schools," she said. "All the communities are looking at that."
Walnut Creek received $420,000 from Caltrans to improve sidewalks, intersections and drainage near Buena Vista Elementary School, which is also a bike and pedestrian route to BART, said traffic engineer Rafat Raie.
"It will encourage people to get out of their cars and make it more efficient for bus movement," he said. "Overall, it makes it a better intersection for all users. We have to realize that we do have peak hour traffic in the city in the morning and the congestion is almost expected by most people."
The city also spends about $100,000 a year for 10 crossing guards at schools including Walnut Creek Intermediate, near busy Ygnacio Valley Road. Crossing guard Jack Morgan, 77, said he was bumped once by a driver who did not see him until the "Stop" sign he was holding fell onto the hood of the car.
"When I first came here several years ago, lots of times people would try to cut in front of me and I wouldn't let them do it," he said. "Now, they don't do it, because they know I'm right there."
Campuses designed 30 to 50 years ago were not made to handle the traffic that now inundates them twice a day, said Dick Nicoll, interim superintendent for the Mt. Diablo district. Back then, schools served smaller geographic areas and many children walked or biked to school.
"It just seems to be the practice (now) that everybody drives their kids to school or walks," he said. Few children ride bikes to school anymore, perhaps because of safety fears.
In Albany, chaperones walk children to one school in a virtual bus formation, picking up students along the way.
Worth said many Bay Area cities and counties are drawing up bike and pedestrian plans, but state funding for transportation projects is drying up. Most projects take a lot of collaboration on the part of schools, cities, counties and other agencies, she said.
Heather Duncan, principal of Buena Vista Elementary, said parents and staff worked tirelessly to bring attention to their concerns about congestion and safety.
"We're thrilled" about the upcoming improvements near her school, she said. "We've been writing letters of support for this for the last three years."
