Reply to Is Nottingham going to be the new option school in Arlington or its still being decided?

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Reply to "Is Nottingham going to be the new option school in Arlington or its still being decided?"

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[quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous]
Thank you, I really appreciate that. A lot of us really are worried about the safety there, not just for ourselves but for anyone who goes to school there. We don't want what happened to Jenn to happen to anyone else, and it feels like such a slap for the county to tell us over and over again that no additional safety measures will be approved, not matter how badly they are needed. That stretch of Little Falls between Williamsburg and Kensington is so dangerous, people speed through there like crazy during morning arrival (and the rest of the day), they don't stop at crosswalks, I can't even count the number of times I've seen crossing guards almost hit over the years by cars that just don't stop (it just happened again yesterday at John Marshall/Little Falls). If we're walking through there when the crossing guards aren't out, we take a more circuitous route to Nottingham via safer crossings because some of the most direct crossings are just too dangerous, despite the crosswalks and signs.

The county actually did a traffic study of that part of Little Falls a few years back at the neighborhood's request. [b]The answer we got was that based on traffic patterns during morning arrival at Nottingham, we more than qualified for traffic calming based on traffic volume, speeding, failure to stop at crosswalks and other moving violations, etc., but that they weren't going to do anything because we didn't also meet the threshold throughout enough of the rest of the day as well.[/b] [i]The county openly admitted that morning arrival at Nottingham is too dangerous but that they wouldn't do anything to fix it. [/i] And now if you put an extra 20 buses (the buses needed to take kids to an option program at Nottingham and take current Nottingham-zone walkers elsewhere) and 100+ cars through there are the same time, it's going to be even worse. We are worried someone else will die, and it is troubling that APS doesn't appear to be concerned about that.[/quote]

Likely doesn't make you feel any better, but this is the county's answer all over the place.  I live near two schools and we have significant problems with speeding, parents making u-turns after doing drop-off, and general obnoxious behavior, and yet the volume isn't enough over the course of the day to get traffic calming measures.  We've tried for years, and just a few weeks ago had a neighbor struck in an intersection.  Luckily it was at a low rate of speed so she lived unlike Jennifer, but still has significant injuries and hasn't returned home yet.  I say this only to point out that unfortunately it isn't unique to Nottingham.  What's even more shameful is that most of those dangerous drivers near the schools are themselves parents.
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