Thousands of elementary students in the Shawnee Mission School District headed off to their first day of school Friday morning, but students at Brookwood Elementary School had a few changes to their routine from last year.
The old school was set for a demolition and rebuild after last year, so students walked, biked and waited in the drop-off line at a temporary building about a half mile down the road.
Since it's not a permanent school building, there aren't specific signs indicating the reduced speed for 103rd Street out front, which is marked as 40 miles per hour. Concerned parents worry the school zone signs down he road at the old school aren't close enough to the temporary building.
Brian Shields, city traffic engineer for Overland Park, says the temporary building on 103rd Street is in a large school traffic zone that stretches from Mission to Roe along 103rd Street. Even though it is in a "school zone" technically, the speed has not been reduced during school drop off times and remains at 40 miles per hour.
For parents like Christie Green, whose son is in the fifth grade there, 40 miles per hour is too fast.
"We don't want it 25 miles per hour here all day long," said Green. "We just want it before school, which would be around 8 in the morning [and then also] at 3 in the afternoon."
Green said her son normally would've taken his bike to school, but Friday she accompanied him.
"Maybe the signs that were in front of the former building could travel up here and alert drivers it's a school area," she said.
She also said parents initially wanted a crosswalk near El Monte to cross over toward the school. City officials disagreed and said 90 percent of the school's population comes from east of the Mission intersection, where there is already a crosswalk.
"We have a crosswalk at 103rd and Mission and two crossing guards, and [there is] one down at 103rd and Roe," explained Shields.
It is a seven minute round trip from El Monte to the Roe crosswalk.
"It's a little out of your way, especially if you live right here at El Monte," said Officer John Lacey, spokesperson for Overland Park police. "You could just walk right across the street, but we want you to use the crosswalk. That's the safest way. At this time, safety is our number one concern."
Representatives from Shawnee Mission, the city of Overland Park, police officers and crossing guards were all outside the school Friday morning. They said they plan to be there during pick up times as well.
At this point, Shields did not notice any out-of-the-ordinary traffic patterns inconsistent with the first day of school. He said the city won't decide if changes are necessary until school has been in session for a few weeks and traffic is a little more regular.
The only thing we don't have here is a lowered speed limit," said Shields. "Typically, we do that if there is a cross walk in the middle of the street, which we are not encouraging."
We had a reporter out at 103rd Friday morning for the first day of school to clock passing vehicles on radar. Most clusters of vehicles were maintaining speeds in the 30-40 mile per hour range. Individual vehicles regularly exceeded the limit, though, with the fastest offender topping out at 47 miles per hour.
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