St. Helens schools tackle sidewalk safety

By Erica Ryberg

The South County Spotlight, Aug 12, 2009, Updated Oct 30, 2009

The St. Helens School District Board signaled its intentions Monday to move forward with plans to eliminate a potentially fatal hazard to students walking to St. Helens High School.

Currently a bottleneck exists on Gable Road where the west end of the high school abuts a residence. A telephone pole that sits at the tightest portion of the bottleneck doesn’t help matters, forcing kids to either cut into into the yard or stray into the narrowed street.

St. Helens High School principal Nanette Hagen said that as she drives past the bottleneck on her way to work, the morning glare makes it difficult to see kids in the road.

“Somebody is going to get killed if we don’t do something,” she said at the Monday night meeting.

The board vote allows school Finance Director Terri Burns to continue planning for a temporary easement that gives the homeowner a place to park vehicles so that the front yard of the home can be re-purposed as a sidewalk.

Burns said that the situation will be temporary – probably two years and no more than five – while the district seeks a grant to create sidewalks on Gable Road.

Facebook	Digg	Del.icio.us
Newsvine	Stumbleupon	Reddit