ABC-Stewart School students and their families are beginning the school year with a challenge — navigating how to safely get in and out of the private Montessori school parking lot.
Construction workers hired by the Indiana Department of Transportation have blocked off one entrance to the school property while repaving west State Road 46.
On Wednesday, the private school’s small back parking lot was gridlock, with parents in vehicles waiting to pick up their children and then attempting to leave the school from a single entrance/exit that crews have left open for school access.
A Bartholomew County Sheriff’s Department deputy stopped to help direct traffic for Wednesday afternoon’s dismissal. The deputy then assisted school officials in designing a new traffic and parking pattern designed to move vehicles in and out of the school safely, school director Mike Gorday said.
But on Thursday morning, even with directional traffic cones provided by paving contractor Milestone to move cars through the school lot, and a Milestone vehicle with a yellow warning light slowing traffic where parents were attempting to turn left from State Road 46 into the school, some near-collisions occurred.
As cars lined up to enter the student drop-off area behind the school on a rainy Thursday morning, a semi locked its brakes behind a minivan attempting to turn left off State Road 46 into the school, narrowly avoiding a rear-end collision.
Traffic was stopping abruptly at times when eastbound traffic going to the school made a hard right turn into the school entryway, or when school-bound traffic waits to turn left into the same entryway.
Things get even more congested when drivers are trying to enter and leave the school simultaneously, while navigating into fast-moving traffic on the two-lane highway. And there are the road construction workers and equipment to watch out for, too, as that equipment is moving along the highway throughout the day.
ABC-Stewart does not use buses for transportation. Each of the 190 students — some from the same family — arrive and depart by family car each day, Gorday said. In addition to those vehicles, the school has about 35 staff members who also drive each day. Staff are parking near the blocked entrance on the far west side of the property to give more room for parents to park.
There’s no quick solution to the logjam in sight.
School officials have been told the current road configuration, with a concrete barrier blocking off the lane where the normal entry is located, will continue for at least three weeks, or longer with weather delays.
For more, see Saturday’s Republic.
