PORT ANGELES — Funding of $30,000 has been approved to install about a half-dozen flashing amber traffic-warning lights at and near Franklin Elementary School to prepare for adding traffic cameras at school zones.
Port Angeles City Council members approved the expenditure 5-0 at their meeting Tuesday following a public hearing. Council members Jim Moran and Cherie Kidd had excused absences.
“School zones are always notorious because people are driving faster through those zones,” an appreciative Franklin Principal Jeff Lunt said Wednesday.
“They are accustomed to driving the speed limit, then all of a sudden, a school zone is upon them. That’s good awareness when they see flashing lights from a distance.”
Council member Mike French said Wednesday he expects the lights will be installed by the end of the 2019-2020 school year. The school is at 2505 S. Washington St. It fronts Lauridsen.
Police Chief Brian Smith said the intention is to deploy the lights on a half-dozen school-zone, 20-mph signs on Race and Park streets and Lauridsen Boulevard.
When the devices will be distributed is up to the public works department, Smith and French said.
Public Works Director Thomas Hunter was not available for comment by mid-afternoon Wednesday to discuss the project.
“This is the most effective way to prioritize safety for our youth as they travel to and from school,” he told council members Tuesday.
“It also allows us to continue down the path of traffic safety cameras that could be installed.”
Hunter, Police Chief Brian Smith and Finance Director Sarina Carrizosa provided council members with a staff report on the project.
Installation of the amber-light system is occurring “to prepare for installation of traffic cameras that would be used to enforce traffic violations in school zones,” they said in the report.
Crossing guard Kelly Hoch assists children crossing Lauridsen Boulevard in front of Franklin Elementary School in Port Angeles on Wednesday. (Keith Thorpe/Peninsula Daily News)
“The first school zone identified for this program is Franklin School.”
Council members said no decisions had been made on installing cameras.
The initial $30,000 of funding will come from general fund reserves generated by 2018 savings.
“Additional revenue for future school zone safety lights will come from revenue generated from traffic violations in school zones enforced with traffic cameras,” according to the report by Hunter, Smith and Carrizosa.
One council member sounded averse to relying on speeding tickets.
“The goal here is not to get revenue from speeders,” Lindsey Schromen-Wawrin said at Tuesday’s meeting.
“The goal is to decrease the number of speeders where there are places where there is high pedestrian activity, particularly at schools, where young people might not be as familiar [or be] aware of vehicles as at other places.”
Schromen-Wawrin said according to a national study by the Insurance Institute for Highway Safety, red-light fatalities are at a 10-year high.
“Traffic cameras are one way of reducing that in certain communities,” he said.
Maury Modine of Beaver, a candidate for Port of Port Angeles commissioner and the only person who spoke at the public hearing, asked about the company that would handle the contract for cameras and if it would take most of the ticket revenue.
Deputy Mayor Kate Dexter told Modine his question was not what the council was considering Tuesday.
Dexter, who drops her child off at Franklin, said she has noticed an uptick of speeders whom she suspects are college students driving up Lauridsen to Peninsula College.
The amber lights “will be an appropriate step if for no other reason than to remind people they are driving into a school zone,” Dexter said.
In an interview following the meeting, Smith said the number of speeding tickets issued at school zones “is not a good measure” of how often driver violate the 20-mph-hour school-zone speed limit.
“We have not had the means to do a scientific study of speeds in school zones,” he said.
Speeding in those areas is “kind of a universal problem,” Smith added.
“Right now, we are talking about more awareness of when a school zone is actually in session.”
Parents and children cross Race Street at Lauridsen Boulevard in Port Angeles after school Wednesday afternoon. (Keith Thorpe/Peninsula Daily News)
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Senior Staff Writer Paul Gottlieb can be reached at 360-452-2345, ext. 55650, or at pgottlieb@peninsuladailynews.com.
