Desire to separate parents’ cars and buses fueled plan.
By: Lea Kahn
School district officials, who have been criticized recently for proposing to send seven school buses onto Phillips Avenue to reach the Lawrenceville Elementary School, explained the reason behind the plan last week and why they believe it may be the best available option.
The issue of school buses on Phillips Avenue was raised last month when some residents expressed concern that the school buses would be required to turn onto the narrow side street from Main Street to reach LES. The intersection is narrow, and there is barely enough room for a car and a bus to pass each other.
The expansion project at LES, plus school district officials’ goal to reduce traffic congestion on Craven Lane near the school, are the driving forces behind the plan to send school buses on a portion of Phillips Avenue, said school district Business Administrator Thomas Eldridge last week.
The plan calls for additional classrooms, a media center and a new main office at the grades K-3 school. Existing space within the building would be reconfigured. Work is under way and the project is expected to be completed this summer.
The project also includes a new bus drop-off and pickup area on the Phillips Avenue side of the school. Students who walk to school or who are driven there by parents would enter on the Craven Lane side of the building. School buses transport the other students.
Craven Lane was chosen as the drop-off point for parents who drive their children to school because it has sidewalks, Mr. Eldridge said. Parents could drop off their children and they could walk to the school.
Phillips Avenue does not have sidewalks, so it made more sense to direct school buses to a specific drop-off point in the new parking lot outside the new wing, he said.
For many years, school buses dropped off children at the LES entrance on Craven Lane, Mr. Eldridge said. Some parents who drove their children to school also dropped them off on Craven Lane, and sometimes became mired in the congestion that resulted from buses and cars converging at the same spot.
When school district officials began thinking about the renovations and additions to LES last year, it was decided to design the project to separate the children who were bused to school from children who were driven to school by their parents. The goal was to keep buses away from areas where students are walking and getting out of parents’ cars, Mr. Eldridge said.
School district officials decided to create a bus drop-off on Phillips Avenue, near the new wing and staff parking lot, and to direct parents who drive their children to school to drop them off on Craven Lane, he said. That scheme was incorporated into the plans drawn up by Spiezle Architectural Group, the Trenton-based architectural firm hired to design the addition and renovation project.
In fact, school buses have been using Phillips Avenue to drop off children in the morning and to pick them up in the afternoon since October, Mr. Eldridge said. The buses continue across a parking lot in front of the school and exit onto Craven Lane and, ultimately, Main Street.
Partially removing the school buses from Craven Lane has allowed parents to drop off and pick up their children more quickly, he said. Parents can drop off their child anywhere on Craven Lane, and the child can use the sidewalk to walk to school, he said.
"We know it works," Mr. Eldridge said. "People don’t realize we are doing it now."
While the seven school buses two 54-passenger buses and five 16-passenger buses use Phillips Avenue to reach LES, they may not necessarily turn onto the narrow street from Main Street, Mr. Eldridge said.
The school district cannot dictate the streets that a school bus takes, he said. That decision is often left up to the school bus driver. The majority of buses headed for LES turn onto Gordon Avenue from Main Street or Bergen Street, and then turn onto James Street, he said. They turn right from James Street onto Phillips Avenue and continue toward LES, he added.
But some school buses may travel on Main Street and turn onto Phillips Avenue, he said. If there is a car on Phillips Avenue at the intersection, the bus driver waits for the car to make its move and then turns onto the street, he said.
Schools Superintendent Max Riley outlined the proposed bus route before a handful of neighbors at a special meeting Jan. 12, sponsored by Lawrenceville Main Street.
At that session, he attempted to answer questions and address concerns raised by the plan to send the school buses on Phillips Avenue. No solutions were found, however, Dr. Riley pledged to work with the community on the issue.
"We are not going away," Dr. Riley told the residents at that meeting. "The conversation will continue until we come up with a plan that works, (but) I can’t widen Phillips Avenue."