Detour Passes U-Hi, So Slow Down!

FROM VALLEY VOICE page V6 (Saturday, May 24, 1997): Correction A headline in last Thursday’s Valley Voice incorrectly stated the Dishman-Mica detour goes past University High School. In fact, the detour goes past University Elementary School.

University Elementary School has a message for drivers who are detouring off Dishman-Mica Road: Slow down.

Volunteers using a radar gun and display board will back up that message for the next few weeks. They hope those flashing numbers will remind drivers to slow to 20 miles per hour near the school when children are present.

The closure of a mile-long stretch of Dishman-Mica means University Road, south of 16th Avenue, carries more traffic than usual.

“They pop up over that hill at 17th or 18th and suddenly they’re right in a school zone,” said Phyllis Betts, principal at University Elementary.

“You combine all the Ponderosa traffic with our regular traffic on University and the traffic from the high school - and certain hours of the day can get pretty hectic.”

Betts also has asked county officials to put orange flags on the speed limit signs on University.

If volunteers using the radar gun see drivers who fail to slow down at all, they can take down their license numbers. The Sheriff’s Department will send letters to those drivers, said Skip Bonuccelli, Central Valley School District spokesman.

, DataTimes