Signal Needed Now At Sheridan School

Lisa Branun remembers the morning a truck driver deliberately blocked both lanes of traffic on Freya, forcing motorists to stop for a child who needed to cross to Sheridan Elementary School.

Spokane city officials should display some of that trucker’s compassion.

Branun owns a hair salon at Fifth and Freya, just across the street from Sheridan. For at least six years, Sheridan parents and others in the low-income neighborhood have been asking the city for a traffic signal at the treacherous intersection.

Their hopes were high a couple of months ago when the City Council unanimously approved a traffic light.

The council was meeting that week at East Central Community Center, not far from Sheridan. A neighborhood coalition presented its urgent and well-documented safety concern, and nobody on the council had a reason not to spend an estimated $100,000 to mitigate it. Sheridan parents hoped to see a signal light in place by the time school resumes next fall.

Even when the cost estimate more than doubled, the council stuck to its commitment. And even when the timeline for a full-time light stretched to next Christmas, the neighborhood activists were patient.

But now the council is talking about reneging on its promise because federal funding recently came through to make Freya part of a one-way couplet. It would be unwise to install a light at Fifth and Freya now, then have to redo much of the work as part of the couplet project, the council was told last week. Fifty to 70 percent of the cost of an immediate light would be wasted, officials estimate.

“Waste” might be a valid term if the issue at Fifth and Freya were concrete and asphalt. It’s not. It’s children’s safety.

Some 14,000 vehicles a day pass Sheridan on Freya (actually more during construction work on nearby Ray), most of them during rush-hour periods that overlap the times children are going to or from school.

For a half hour each school-day morning and afternoon, crossing guards are on duty with whistles, flags, traffic cones and a key that activates a flashing yellow light. And even that inadequate solution is unavailable on weekends or during school vacations when neighborhood children still use the Sheridan playground.

That is the dangerous situation that City Council members decided on March 21 was in need of prompt correction. That situation still exists.

Desperate for a compromise, the city is exploring a dubious interim strategy that would require youngsters to cross half of Freya to a median strip, then move to the other end of the median strip - as cars whiz past on both sides - before crossing the other half of the street.

City officials believe impatient motorists who now commonly ignore the crossing guards, yellow lights and school-crossing signs at the intersection will respect crosswalks and a median strip in the middle of the block.

This is no time for creative backsliding.

Citizens who get involved, work within the system and make a convincing case on behalf of their children’s well-being are community assets and role models.

All the more reason - not that more is needed - for the city to keep its promise to them.