The Glen Rock Borough Council is conducting a traffic study around the Byrd School area due to complaints of residents and parents of clogged streets and the inability to pull in and out of their own driveway.
On October 2, the Council held a special meeting regarding the study, including a presentation from the borough’s Traffic Engineer Bob Nash, the Glen Rock Police Department, and input from the residents. Mayor Bruce Packer had initially started the conversation with the Board of Education, Police Chief Dean Ackermann, and other police officials. They later met with the Borough Engineer to talk about a traffic study around all the town’s schools and the train stations and the Borough Council agreed to spend $15,000 to fund the study.
According to Nash, the area of the study covers Boulevard, from Rock Road west; Rock Road, the Main Line train station track area, and, loosely, the dead ends of Doremus Avenue and West Main Street. The focus of the study will be to come up with a traffic flow improvement plan that will include: Child drop off/pick up; off-street parking plan for the Byrd School staff; egress for residential driveways, and round-the-clock clear roadways for emergency vehicle access to the school and area homes.
Several residents, Byrd School families and teachers spoke about their concerns at the meeting.
Some residents said it can take up to 45 minutes to pull in or out of their own driveway on the roads such as Kenmore, Doremus and Oxford. The Alliance of Byrd neighbors and Byrd parents / HSA members, said there is no police enforcement in the area and suggested that having a police presence will help make the area safer. However, Ackermann ruled out assigning an officer to the school every day at dropoff and pickup times.
“I cannot have an officer there every day,” he said. “As staffing and service requirements permit, police officers are assigned to periodic enforcement details at our schools and in school zones, including the Byrd School area, on a rotating basis.”
Some residents said the problem is even worse in bad weather, and they complained the Byrd School area is not a priority for snow and ice removal.
Glen Rock longtime resident Elizabeth Carr, who attended the meeting, said if more students walked to school, that would help alleviate the problem.
“No matter what the study says, you need to change the behavior of the parents and drivers,” Carr said. “Children need to walk more. We are a walking district.”
Nash encouraged residents with questions or suggestions about the study to email him at: [email protected]
