HomeMy WebLinkAboutEstabrook School Access Task Force Interim Report - Feb 2012
EstabrookSchoolAccessTaskForce(ETF)InterimReport
Submitted to Board of Selectmen and School Committee
February 9, 2012
Task Force Membership
Michelle Ciccolo, Chair, Christian Boutwell, Jim Brown, Judy Crocker, Peter Johnson, Richard
Larrabee, Ed Loturco, Ben Moroze, Harold Payson, Tom Peterson; Liaisons: Selectman Deb Mauger,
School Committee Member MaryAnn Stewart; regular Town staff participants: Police Chief Mark Corr,
Interim Fire Chief Keith Hoyle, Facilities Director Pat Goddard, Public Works Director Bill Hadley,
Town Engineer John Livsey, Principal Sandra Trach
ETF Charge
Purpose - to advise the School Committee and Board of Selectmen on providing:
1.Safe access during construction of the new Estabrook School by the vehicular traffic of
parents, faculty and construction vehicles, including pedestrians;
2.Access for public safety (police and fire department) purposes after the new school is
constructed and in use; and
3.Access necessary for safe access by students who walk to the school, school buses and
parents/guardians dropping off or picking up students.
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Related Problems Identified for the Community to Address
As data was gathered and discussions ensued, the following problems were identified:
Vehicle queuing & traffic congestion at the school entrance
Inadequate public safety access
Poor pedestrian access
Parking spilling over onto private streets
causing hazardous conditions on nearby
roads
Decision Making Principals
Always cognizant of the fact that the ETF charge
only allows for it to make recommendations to
decision making boards, nonetheless, certain
principals had to guide our thinking and
deliberations. The ETF recognizes that any recommendation involving funding will need
BOS/SC and Town Meeting appropriation (along with approvals potentially by other boards
including Appropriations Committee, Capital Expenditures Committee & Permanent Building
Committee).
However, the following concepts guided the ETF in its process:
Maximize safety for students and others accessing site
Allow for adequate public safety response to the site
Make recommendations that allow for construction of the school to proceed on schedule
Seek plans that improve safety & efficiency of processing student pick ups and drop offs
Minimize cost to the town for implementing any solutions
Minimize negative environmental outcomes
Minimize impacts to residential neighbors
Minimize neighborhood disruption during peak times
Cars queuing on Grove St.
Attempt to find solutions that do not merely transfer the problem or burden from one
location to another
Activities
The ETF met 10 times in public session between June 2011 and February 2012 to gather and
review information related to safe access at Estabrook. The ETF held one site walk and
convened a sub-committee to survey parents on transportation choices. The ETF commissioned
engineering studies of Beta Group, Inc. and met numerous times with Beta and the DiNisco
Design team to review ongoing design progress and consider various design scenarios relative to
their impact on safe access. The ETF allowed for regular public participation including
comments and questions from the audience during all of its meetings. Task Force members
solicited input from neighbors during the process. A public charette was held where all
participants at the meeting were invited to mark up maps and make suggestions to design team
members relative to safe access opportunities and improvements. The minutes of the ETF
meetings are on the web site along with the results of the transportation survey.
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Engineering
The ETF contracted with Beta Group, Inc., to perform a traffic analysis and develop alternatives
to improve site access. Existing site conditions and traffic data was gathered in June 2011 before
school was dismissed for the year. Six early conceptual scenarios for permanent access were
considered. A charette was held at which task force members and the public were invited to
brainstorm ideas on site access improvements. Two initial concepts were dismissed fairly
quickly due to their infeasibility for a variety of reasons related to conservation impacts, ledge,
cost, impracticality. Beta Group then performed a more detailed analysis of the remaining four
concepts.
Construction Access
The Task Force met with the DiNisco design team to review proposed school location on the site
and construction access scenarios. The Task Force voted to recommend to the Board of
Selectmen and School Committee that construction access be provided off of Grove Street in
accordance with a specific plan known as Concept 5A shown below. This selection represented
a modification to construction Concept 5 to minimize impact to the abutting property which has
driveway access provide off of the school access road. Widening on the northwest side of the
access drive has significant impact to the residential property which already has a steeply
inclined drive. Any future design along the access road, needs to carefully take into
consideration the impact to this drive to avoid creating an unmanageable access for this abutter.
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The ETF recognizes that the 5A construction access scenario continues the present, undesirable
practice of queuing vehicles off site on Grove Street during construction. However, for a variety
of reasons, it was found that construction vehicles should enter the school grounds from Grove
Street. Furthermore, it was determined to be less than ideal to have parents queuing on Robinson
Road during construction. First the route to the construction site would be too tight and too
circuitous for trucks to adequately access the construction site. Specifically, any through-traffic
pattern using both Grove Street and Robinson Road, would create too much pavement and leave
insufficient site space for construction staging and new building placement. Secondly, the route
for parents dropping off was safer for the children if they were loading and unloading out of the
passenger side of the car. The schematic diagrams showed that if coming from Robinson Road,
children would have to cross vehicular pathways and exit vehicles from the wrong side of the
car. Moreover, Robinson Road, in its present form, is unsuitable for heavy vehicles, and
presently of insufficient width to allow for vehicle queuing and could not be upgraded prior to
the start of construction. For all of these reasons and more, the ETF endorsed construction
access option 5A.
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Main Access to School
Following consideration of how to get construction vehicles on-site and safely provide student
drop off during construction, the ETF turned its attention to what should be the primary, main
entrance to the new school. As outlined in the Beta Group Phase I report, more than 4 scenarios
were considered and evaluated in-depth (several others were also reviewed but dismissed early
on due to infeasibility). After careful review of the options, a unanimous vote was taken to
recommend that the Grove Street entrance remain the primary entrance to the school with
Robinson Road to be further evaluated to fill public safety and other minor access needs. The
exact language of that vote is as follows:
A motion was made and seconded to designate the current main entrance as the future
main entrance with Robinson Road access as a candidate to be explored for secondary
access. A modification was made on this motion to add that the Task Force would
recommend to the designer that Grove Street remain the primary access with Robinson
Road being the secondary access
.
Reasons why Robinson Road was not selected as the primary access are numerous but the
following constitute the majority of considerations as to why the ETF felt Grove Street was a
main
superioraccess point:
Sight lines are worse at Robinson & Grove Street than they are at Grove Street at the
Access road and this section of Grove Street can be modified more easily to improve
sight lines and safety
Robinson Road has a 90 degree turn which would be difficult for school buses and other
large vehicles to navigate
Grove Street is more direct while
Robinson Rd. is circuitous and
Grove Street currently can
accommodate more vehicular
volume
Given that students are to remain
in the present school during
construction, the only location for
the new school is in the rear of the
existing site. Accessing the school
from Grove Street will allow for a
longer internal vehicular queue
which helps to resolve a major
safety concern
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With the school sited so close to the back of the lot, there would not likely be room along
that back side of the building to allow for internal circulation for the drop-off area.
Longer length drop off areas tend to work more effectively so queuing would be less
efficient and probably take longer than it does today if done from the Robinson side
Note:!
Image
represents
early
design site
plan
concept
only!
Queuing on Robinson Road is undesirable because the road dead-ends at the school and
such queuing would make it difficult for public safety officials to get to the school in the
event of an accident or other emergency at the entrance of the school unless Robinson
Road is widened more significantly (even greater than 24’).
Queuing on Robinson would make it very difficult for residents to access their homes at
the end of the Street. Queuing on Grove Street today causes many of the same problems
but at these residents can approach the school entrance from two directions and can still
(albeit not ideally) get to their homes if they drive in opposite of the queue. Moreover,
the new school presents an opportunity to eliminate the queuing on Grove Street which is
highly unsafe and undesirable
Queuing on Robinson Road would likely lead to the requirement to widen the road to at
least 24’ but probably much wider given public safety response needs
Robinson Road upgrades are proceeding on a separate design time line and funding
source and any significant widening will likely require greater permitting including an
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NOI, and ENF. Consequently, such improvements might not be ready and in place by
the time the new school opens.
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Mass. Environmental Policy Act (MEPA) review under 301CMR, Section 11.03:
http://www.env.state.ma.us/mepa/regs/11-03.aspx
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As some houses are in close proximity to the road and there are numerous trees,
significant widening of Robinson Road (beyond 18’) would be cost prohibitive, likely in
the range of $3 million – at least double the cost of the proposed improvements to widen
it to 18’.
Public Safety
The Town’s public safety officials provided input and recommendations regarding emergency
vehicular access. A ladder test was performed to evaluate the suitability of the secondary school
access off of Robinson Road. A memorandum was provide by public safety to the ETF detailing
minimum standards. The ETF voted to adopt the recommendations outlined in the October 31,
2011 public safety memorandum. Public safety officials further revised and refined their
th
recommendations in a follow up memorandum dated January 17, 2012. In that memorandum, a
traffic light is recommended at the school entrance on Grove Street. The ETF has not yet made a
recommendation relative to whether or not it supports a traffic light. It was discussed at the last
ETF meeting that further information regarding the amount of on-site queuing would be needed
before traffic engineers could make a recommendation on the utility and desirability of a traffic
light. This issue remains open for further discussion by the ETF. The ETF notes here that a
traffic light, in order to operate at desired efficiency, would likely require turning lanes on Grove
Street and on the access road. Thus, it is important to consider such an option very carefully as
any installation of a light will have impacts to abutters both on Grove Street and on the access
road. While traffic operational improvements may offset any negative impacts, the issue must be
studied carefully.
Robinson
The ETF has endorsed the recommendation of public safety that the entire length of
Road be upgradedto a minimum of 18 feet
to provide adequate fire vehicle access to the
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school. In addition to other components in the public safety recommendations of October 2011,
the ETF has endorsed the following items included in that memorandum:
Turn around area at the end of Robinson Road on the school site with limited
parking for student drop off.
Widen corner of Robinson Road before Turning Mill Road
Work with Safe Routes to Schools Committee to evaluate installing a sidewalk from
Turning Mill Road to the end of Robinson Road,
ETF also supports continuing this
side walk all the way to Grove Street
Improve the Robinson Road and Grove Street intersection
Improve site lines on Grove Street by the school entrance
Eliminate queuing on Grove Street
Further ETF Recommendations
The ETF voted to recommend that free busing
ETF took two additional but significant votes.
or reduced bus fees be provided during the construction phase of the project
. This is in
recognition of the fact that the present situation of queuing is unsafe, generates significant
congestion, and is an ongoing burden to area residents. It is likely that despite everyone’s best
efforts, increased traffic to the site and other construction impacts may worsen this situation.
Therefore getting kids onto buses so they can be safely delivered to school without delay is of
utmost importance. The Town may also want to revisit its policy on bus fees in general and we
applaud the work of the newly created committee to evaluate school transportation. The work of
this committee should be supported and advanced with enthusiasm.
Regarding Permanent School Access
The ETF recommends that through the combination of behavioral, procedural and engineering
that no queuing should overflow onto any public way after the new school is
measures,
built
. This last recommendation requires clarification and explanation. Despite the fact that
queuing occurs at many of our schools in Lexington, queuing on public roads at worse presents a
grave safety concern and at best creates a public nuisance with congestion, and negative air
quality impacts. The ETF believes that building a new Estabrook School provides an opportunity
to correct an untenable queuing situation. Our leaders should look to correct the problem and not
allow it to continue and our design team and our public administrators should collectively be
able to come up with creative solutions.
The ETF strongly favors modifying behavioral and procedural methods for arrival and dismissal
for the permanent facility, in lieu of aggressive and costly off-site improvements. Given that the
off-site improvement funding has been de-coupled from the Debt Exclusion, such measures can
be implemented later if the behavioral and procedural changes fail to produce the desired result.
Many of the scenarios the Task Force has reviewed thus far seem to be a somewhat excessive
solution to a queuing problem that essentially only occurs for approximately 20-minutes per day
(afternoon pick up), 5 times per week (and not in the summer). Over-engineering a solution to a
short duration problem may be unnecessarily costly, disruptive, destructive, and environmentally
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unsound. Many Task Force members have expressed the sentiment that we need leadership to
come up with creative space planning and usage scenarios to avoid having tax payers over spend
on physical improvements. That tax payer money can be better spent elsewhere educating kids
or fixing roads…
It is not the job of the Task Force to micro manage areas under the purview of the School
Committee and BOS but here are some of the ideas that have come out through this process:
Phased dismissal schedule
Free or reduced fee busing
Charging parents a fee for dropping off in single-family vehicles (as opposed to car
pooling)
Parking configurations on-site to which parents are directed for mandatory parking (no
live pick up) when the queue starts to approach Grove Street
Satellite parking lots served by trails leading into the site (similar to what Bridge School
has with the Old Reservoir parking lot), perhaps at Mountain Road
Phased construction improvements to off-site roads such as adding a stacking/storage
lane on Grove Street, and/or adding a stacking/storage lane on Robinson Road, or Eldred
Given cost and impact to
Street, and/or widening the entrance drive to the school.
neighborhood character, these latter options should only be considered if above
options are tried and fail to achieve the desired result.
School bus fees should be reduced or eliminated during the construction phase and a fee
instituted for parents who drop off.
Additional and clarifying recommendations of the ETF:
A sidewalk should be added to Robinson Road connecting all the way to Grove Street.
Design of this element needs to be carefully coordinated with the neighborhood. As one
can see from the map below, there are a lot of residential houses to the East of Robinson
Road and children coming from those houses should be able to walk to school. If
Robinson Road remains a small, narrow, residential road, a sidewalk is essential to safe
access for students coming from those neighborhoods.
A turn-around area needs to be provided at the end of Robinson Road for Fire Truck
access and to prevent other vehicles from having to drive over or back up into abutting
properties.
The final site design should have a longer loading and unloading area for students to
maximize the efficiency and speed of loading and unloading students arriving by car.
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A broader survey (with public input) of surrounding streets and walking access should be
conducted with the Public Works Department, School Department, Sidewalk Committee,
Bike Committee, Safe Routes To School Committee, Greenways Corridor Committee,
PTA, and neighborhood to identify and catalog a long-term plan for minor phased
improvements to walking and biking access to the school which can be implemented as
roads are rebuilt or upgraded or as other funding for safety and access improvements
becomes available.
More information
Further information on the ETF: http://ci.lexington.ma.us/committee/estabrookaccess.cfm
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