Trentwood Elementary tackles troublesome traffic tangle with added parking, new drop-off/pick-up lane

Gridlock in front of Trentwood Elementary on East Wellesley Avenue in Spokane Valley has given way to orderly traffic thanks to the addition of a new parking lot and a drop-off area on the east side of the school.

The worst congestion would happen at the end of the school day, said East Valley School District Superintendent Kelly Shea. “People were all stacked up,” he said. “Across the street would be bumper to bumper across the entire school.”

There was, and still is, a curb cut in front of the school to allow parents to pull over to drop off or pick up their children. But there would be so many cars that they would double and triple park, forcing kids to run between cars and trapping cars that had pulled into the cutout, Shea said. Neighbors would often call and complain about parents blocking access to their driveways, mailboxes and trash cans.

The problem was the school’s original parking lot along Wellesley, which wasn’t large enough for the school staff to park in, let alone visitors and parents.

The addition of a new parking lot solved all those problems. “We now have enough spots for all our staff,” Shea said. “We don’t have all the traffic congestion in front of the school.”

In addition to more parking, the new lot includes a drive-thru student drop-off lane. There are two paraeducators outside each morning to open car doors and let children cross the sidewalk and go straight into the playground behind the school.

“We just run them through like a valet service,” Shea said. “We want the kids to go from the curb to the car. We don’t want them to go out in the parking lot. This is the safest way we can get them out of the car and get into the school.”

Children who are getting breakfast can get into the school through a door off the playground that is monitored by staff. Parents who need to go inside to visit the office can park in one of the several visitor parking spots by the front door and enter that way.

The changes also mean parents aren’t mixing with the school buses that use a drop-off and pick-up loop on the west side of the school. “When buses and private vehicles mix, it gets a little wild,” he said.

The school did have to remove a swing set and part of the playground to make way for the new parking lot, but everything that was taken out has been replaced and new playground structures have been added, Shea said.

A variety of funding sources was tapped to make the playground expansion possible, with the district paying to replace the swing set. “Since we were taking that out, the district was going to replace that with levy dollars,” Shea said.

At the same time the school’s Parent Teacher Organization had been raising money to put in a walking path and the ASB had been raising money to add more playground equipment. Both those groups chipped in to add those amenities.

The walking path that loops around one end of the playground has proved to be popular, and not just with the students. “People in the community have come out and walked on it,” Shea said.

Construction on the new parking lot began right after school got out in June and Shea said the neighborhood was able to get through the project without many problems. “They were very patient with us during construction this summer,” he said.

The project, called the parking and circulation improvement project, was paid for with levy dollars. Shea said the district plans to put a replacement levy on the ballot in February that will pay for the same parking improvements at all the district’s elementary schools.

“Our schools were never designed for the amount of parent traffic we’re seeing now,” he said. “This is tied into what our goals are on how to make our schools more secure.”

The district has plans to install secured single points of entry at its elementary schools this summer, which requires all parents and visitors to enter through a locked and monitored front door. That won’t be possible without the reconfiguration of parking lots like what was done at Trentwood, Shea said.

“If we didn’t do this we’d be trying to bring in all our students through the front door and you’d have to unlock them,” he said.

Overall, Shea said he’s pleased with the results of the new parking lot and parent drop-off loop at Trentwood. “This has been a huge success for us,” he said.