TEMECULA: Bridge won't be part of widened Pechanga Parkway
TEMECULA ---- Despite parents' pleas for a pedestrian bridge to safeguard students crossing Pechanga Parkway, city officials said Tuesday that the widened road will include some safety improvements but no bridge for walkers.
Some residents had expressed concern that the road is difficult for pedestrians to navigate, especially students walking from the Rainbow Canyon neighborhood to Temecula Luiseno Elementary and Erle Stanley Gardner Middle School. They worried that the danger would increase when the parkway is expanded to six lanes between the Pechanga Parkway Bridge near Temecula Parkway and Wolf Valley Road. Pechanga Parkway is now four lanes.
To assuage those fears, school officials had asked about the possibility of including a pedestrian bridge in the expansion plans. At a meeting Tuesday between city and Temecula Valley Unified School District officials, city Public Works Director Bill Hughes said that while safety measures will be taken, a pedestrian bridge is not in the cards.
City officials said the problem was two-fold. Aside from the cost of building such a bridge, the walkway would have to include huge ramps or elevators to be compliant with the Americans with Disabilities Act. School board members speculated that students would not wait for an elevator, but instead run across the road.
Hughes said he believes the intersections will be made safer by the addition of countdown clocks that let pedestrians know how much time they have to cross. Hughes said cameras also will film the intersections, which could then be monitored at City Hall.
"We feel the intersections themselves, when we get done with the work, are going to be very modern," Hughes said.
The Pechanga Parkway project is expected to cost $30 million. Construction will start later this year and probably be completed in spring of 2009. The portion of Pechanga Parkway from Wolf Valley southeast to Deer Hollow Way will remain four lanes, but will undergo other improvements.
Schools Superintendent Carol Leighty said she was satisfied with the planned safety measures and pointed out that crossing guards will remain at Pechanga Parkway intersections to guide students.
"It will be fine," she said. "It will be better than it is now."
School officials also queried city officials about how the later starts at the district's middle schools would affect traffic. The school board is considering whether to start the middle school days two hours later on Mondays to give teachers additional planning time.
City officials said it is likely that late starts would improve traffic because there would be fewer cars on the road at the time students would be headed to school.
-- Contact staff writer Rani Gupta at (951) 676-4315, Ext. 2625, or at rgupta@californian.com.