[ back ]
Engineer investigates after-school traffic
(by Maggie Fazeli Fard - March 12, 2008)
On the heels of numerous heated meetings with residents, the board of education and the police department’s traffic officer, the mayor and council authorized the borough’s engineering firm to investigate traffic conditions at
Fieldstone
Middle School to give an outsider’s point of view.
Maser Consulting, the borough’s engineering firm, was awarded the service contract not to exceed $1,000 on Tuesday, March 11. Maser will not perform a full traffic impact study, but rather investigate the current after-school conditions and provide recommendations to the mayor and council. Following the site visit, Maser will meet with the governing body and the board of education to discuss its findings. The contract stipulates that work must be completed before Dec. 31 of this year, but Borough Engineer Andrew Hipolit said the investigation would be done by the end of the week.
Hipolit said that the traffic expert will say, “This is what I observed and here are the recommendations I make. There’s no emotion involved.”
Taking the emotion out of the equation is a new step for the borough, which has thus far received recommendations from those with a vested interested in the safety of the school children – the board of education, parents, residents neighboring the school, and the police department.
Fieldstone has two access points for cars and pedestrians on Spring Valley Road and Edgren Way. There is additional pedestrian access from Hilton Place. More than 400 students attend Fieldstone and less than half of them get picked up after school.
Among the solutions most recently considered by the borough was an ordinance to open up the south side of Hilton Place, where stopping, standing and parking are currently prohibited on both sides, to after school traffic in exchange for closing off one side of Edgren Way, where stopping, standing and parking are currently permitted on both sides.
The ordinance, based on requests from parents and a recommendation from Sgt. Bruce Czesniewski, the Montvale Police Department’s traffic officer, failed on first reading Feb. 12 after council members said they needed more information before implementing new rules that could have a “ricochet effect,” worsening conditions on other roads.
Other recommendations, made by Czesniewski, included changing the busing requirements so the more children will qualify; extending the sidewalk on the east side of Fieldstone down to the corner of Edgren between Ramapo and Spring Valley roads; asking the county to reduce the speed limit on Spring Valley Road, a county road, to 25 mph; and encouraging car pooling.
Residents of Hilton and Edgren requested that pick-ups be prohibited on all residential streets, a request that was denied since the school is not equipped to handle the traffic that would be diverted from the side streets.
The only recommendation pursued to date is the request for a speed limit reduction on Spring Valley Road from the county, but the council may take action to install a new crossing guard at Edgren Way and Ramapo Road in the near future.
Mayor Roger Fyfe told the council at the March 11 meeting that the borough received an “urgent request” from the board of education, stating that a crossing guard is needed regardless of the engineer’s findings.
The crossing guard would be paid $18 an hour for one hour of work every school day. The board of education had expressed interest in splitting the cost with the borough, said Fyfe, but that the agreement had never been put in writing.
Councilman Timothy Lane, the board of education liaison, said installing a crossing guard would be a “stop-gap measure” in the three and one-half months remaining in the school year, pending the engineer’s traffic review and any future action by the council.
Fyfe said that he would discuss the prospect with the police department.
Maggie Fazeli Fard's e-mail address is fazelifard@northjersey.com.
[ back ]
