New elementary school working out the kinks with road crossings

By: NICOLE SACK - Staff Writer | Thursday, August 30, 2007 11:54 PM PDT ∞

TEMECULA ---- Jerry Meyer has been working as a bus driver in the Temecula school district for about eight months.

But on Thursday when he was finished driving students to their respective schools, he helped usher the children who walk to Temecula Luiseno Elementary School across some busy streets.

Meyer, a tough-looking man with a long goatee and stocky build, donned a neon lime green reflective vest and armed himself with a hand-held stop sign. He was posted at the intersection of Pechanga Parkway and Wolf Valley Road. From where he stood, the newly opened elementary school can be seen over the steady parade of dump trucks, tour buses and other vehicles on the busy road in front of him.

"I certainly don't mind helping out as a crossing guard," said Meyer, who is himself a father of three children.

That might be welcome news for the Temecula Valley Unified School District, which is seeking permanent crossing guards to oversee where Loma Linda and Wolf Valley roads intersect with Pechanga Parkway.

There is concern for the 663 children in kindergarten to fifth grades who attend Temecula Luiseno Elementary, many of whom have to cross the busy thoroughfare.

"As a district, we encourage the children who live close to the school to walk, but we want them to be safe," said Melanie Norton, a spokeswoman for the district. "It's been a hard position to fill."

She said that, while two crossing guards were hired before the school opened for classes, both quit days after classes began.

To fill the gap, the district's own director of transportation services, Bill McKinney, stepped in for crossing-guard duty. Besides soliciting parents of nearby communities to act as crossing guards, McKinney has also asked the district's bus drivers to work the posts.

"It's one of the most difficult positions to fill in the district," he said. "This type of fluctuation is something we go through every time we open a new facility."

Meyer just found out about the need for guards days ago, but said he will continue to volunteer his time as long as the district needs it.

Meyer knows firsthand how dangerous a car can be, as he was hit by a car nearly two years ago. He said he was nearly killed and did lose the function of one of his kidneys. Scars are still visible on his arms and legs.

"I don't want to see any kids get hurt. It's just miserable pain," he said. "The last thing that some of these drivers are expecting to see on this road are little kids. They just won't think about it. Just seeing the kids walk along the sidewalk (on Pechanga Parkway) scares the heck out of me."

The walk scares others as well ---- from the young students who attend the schools to their parents who worry about them to district officials. Many children who live in subdivisions on the west side of Pechanga Parkway attend either the new elementary school, Erle Stanley Gardner Middle School or Great Oak High School, which are on the opposite side of the heavily traveled street. The speed limit at the north end of Pechanga Parkway and the southern section, in front of Pechanga Resort & Casino, are set at 40 mph, but in between the limit rises to 50 mph.

The asphalt is warped and crumbling in places. There is a sidewalk on only one side of the parkway, while the east side remains unfinished as the city prepares for a widening project that is scheduled to go out to bid by the end of the year. But vehicles continue to travel quickly and often seem to be one hiccup away from being on the lone sidewalk.

Despite living five blocks from the school, Samantha Streeter, a fifth-grader at Temecula Luiseno, is driven to school by her parents in the morning and in the afternoon her older brother walks her back home.

"When you walk to school, sometime you think that you might get hit by a car," said Samantha, 10.

Tammy Warren is the mother of Mia, a fourth-grader at the school, and though the family lives in nearby Rainbow Canyon Estates, she drives her daughter to school. She said she would like to see a pedestrian bridge built or a network of parents formed to help one another in getting their children to school and back safely.

"(Mia) just begs me to let her ride her bike to school, but I won't let her," Warren said. "I'm scared that we're going to see a fatality with one of these kids crossing the road."

Even for older students who walk to Great Oak High, the route can be intimidating.

"To me it's scary," said India Bowers, a freshman. "The sidewalk is narrow and the cars come really fast."

Pechanga Parkway has been scrutinized lately as new gambling deals with the state will allow the casino to add 5,500 slot machines to the existing inventory of 2,000. The expansion is expected to increase the number of visitors and vehicles traveling to the casino on Pechanga Parkway.

Arguing that gamblers are turning Pechanga Parkway into a speedway, the Temecula City Council refused to increase the speed limit on the heavily traveled road in July, despite a new traffic survey that city engineers contend requires a higher limit.

About a year ago, residents who live in the Rainbow Canyon subdivision began approaching the city about establishing the speed limit at 40 mph for the entire length of the street and installing flashing school zone signs to slow drivers along Pechanga Parkway.

However, city officials said that neither lowering the speed limit nor creating school zones on that stretch of road could be done because the schools are not on Pechanga Parkway, but on side streets.

Contact staff writer Nicole Sack at (951) 676-4315, Ext. 2616, or nsack@californian.com.