At the Dunwoody City Council Meeting on Monday, Mr. Larry Adams the crossing guard at Dunwoody Elementary presented the City Council with a proposal to assist with traffic control at Dunwoody High School both in the morning and afternoon after his shift at DES. The DeKalb School System does not pay for crossing guards above elementary school therefore the proposal would need to be paid by the City of Dunwoody. The sum of $3,100.00 ($18.00 per hour) for the school year is reasonable and I am in favor of taking Mr. Adams up on his offer. I am guessing this is currently under legal review and then discussions might have to take place with the new Principal Tom McFarrin and the DCSS Administration. Mr. Adams has requested a formal meeting to discuss the proposal and I hope it takes place soon.
Fyi - School starts August 11th.
However, the City implementing the Traffic Circle was endorsed by the prior DHS administration. They liked that the traffic circle would discourage the dangerous practice of left-turning onto Womack from the school's South Lot. They could have turned right, gone around the circle and it would have been much safer. A crossing guard is very helpful at crosswalks that have no traffic controls like a stop sign or traffic signal. Womack/Vermack is a controlled intersection and only trained law enforcement should direct traffic at a high risk intersection like it, especially in a peak rush hour like the school morning with VES, DES and DHS pedestrian traffic on the busy streets. I have to disagree. I don't think using a DCSD crossing guard is in the best interest of pedestrian or vehicle traffic safety. City Council needs to make a decision about the intersection improvements. Courage, please!
ReplyDeleteKudos to Larry our wonderful DES crossing guard to come forward and offer to do this. I think that this is a HUGE step in the right direction. Hopefully this will be implemented.
ReplyDeleteThe roundabout is a solution that the city council wants. Not the nearby residents who live next to the intersection whose homes and land would be directly impacted by this!
And hiring Larry is a cheap way of helping to fix the probem too. The council has already spent (wasted) $120,000 on 'consultants' on this intersection and their whole study was flawed anyway.$3,100 is a bargain to me.
The buses coming out of DHS of an afternoon really do block up Vermack for a period of time. As Larry suggests the intersection needs to be controlled to get those buses through and on their way! And only one of Larry is needed not 4 people to direct traffic cause it is going 4 ways as Mayor Davis has suggested in the past!
Hopefully the council will agree with this and Larry will continue on doing his wonderful job up the road from where he does a great job at DES now!
Council and Mr. Adams was told this afternoon that this proposal will be tested on a limited basis to see if there are improvements.
ReplyDeleteAs far as the traffic circle, the final drawings are being completed as we were only talking in concepts without seeing the exact size of the scope. I am unsure of where we are in this process as it was moved off the front burner for other priorities. I also wanted to see specific pedestrian proposals for the crossing of the intersection prior to any final vote.
Guessing a complete package will be forth coming at some point but Vermack & Mt. Vernon has replaced it in the mean time with the huge Tilly Mill / North Peachtree intersection coming up very soon.