The recently completed traffic study by the Mount Vernon School District provides solutions to the traffic issues at the Mount Vernon School system.

Shive Hattery presented a number of solutions to the school system.

Some of them, like another access point on to Palisades Road to the west of the elementary track, were non starters at the moment, highlighting that if traffic is already congested at Palisades Road, that’s just going to be another roadway that gets clogged.

But the two that were presented to the school board on Monday, Nov. 10, were extremely promising. The first, a roundabout at the odd four way intersection between the middle school and high school, makes a lot of sense. A lot of the potential crashes happen at that intersection, when cars are choosing to either proceed to the high school parking lot to the west of the school and encounter vehicles wanting to proceed from the west parking lot of the high school and are heading towards the middle school instead of back out to Palisades Road. A roundabout at least allows traffic in those situations to continue more fluidly.

The second proposal makes a lot of sense as well – creating a designated bus lane between the elementary and middle school buildings, where most students are being dropped off to begin with. Sidewalks connecting the elementary and middle school would allow students to get from the bus drop off or pick-up lane more easily and the lane would allow the buses to arrive from the north of the school along Seventh Avenue instead of fighting the traffic at 10th and Palisades during peak hours.

Other options included staggering start times at the school buildings to help curtail when each building sees busy times before school hits.

The solutions are at roughly $2 million as presented, but fixing some of the issues in that 7:45 to 8:15 a.m. time frame where getting to the schools is a headache for all involved makes a degree of sense to continue pursuing. Even if it is a project the school tackles on their own and pieces together over a number of years, instead of just one, tackling portions of this will benefit the school.