Parents of Concord High School students should take note: A week from Monday, traffic patterns around the school will not be the same through the rest of the school year.
The city has started a series of water main replacement projects on portions of Warren, North Fruit and Kensington Streets as well as part of Westbourne Road, with work on Warren Street and Westbourne Road beginning April 2. North Fruit Street work will start on May 7 and go until June 1.
Shortly after the water main work begins, the city will also be starting paving projects around the high school, and Rum Hill Road from May 7 to August 20. Those roads will have alternating one-way traffic patterns during that time.
Principal Tom Sica urged parents to be patient.
“Don’t lose your sense of humor,” he wrote in an email to the school community. “We are all going to need it!”
Sica said the drop-off and pick-up situation around CHS is “problematic on a good day.” That’s partially due to the school not having any designated drop-off and pick-up areas, but it’s also due to the nature of the neighborhood.
The west building, distinguished by its pillared entrance, was built in the 1920s and used to be surrounded by its own parking. Things got tricky when the east building was built in the 1960s and all that parking went away, Sica said.
Sica is confident the new traffic pattern will get people where they need to go – unless they’re not interested in going with the flow.
“I worry about people who say they’re going to do their own thing, lone rangers with their own traffic patterns,” he said.
During the course of the work, parents will drop off their children at the Memorial Field parking lot – from where they will walk to the high school – and will pick them up on the west side of South Fruit Street. The CHS faculty parking lot entrance on Warren Street will be closed; the entrance will be moved to Pleasant Street.
Bus drop-off and pick-up will be moved to Woodman Street behind Commons D. Special education transportation will move from North Fruit Street to the Westbourne Road parking lot.
There will be no parking, stopping or standing on parts of North Fruit, Liberty and Woodman streets and Westbourne Road from April 2 to June 1.
Residents on affected streets should also note that any features such as invisible dog fences, landscaping, or irrigation systems located within the right-of-way need to be removed prior to the start of construction, according to a letter sent out to residents last week. The city nor the contractor will not be held responsible for anything in the right-of-way that is damaged during the work.
During construction, North Fruit and Warren Streets and Kensington Road will be closed to through traffic, and on-street parking will be restricted between 7 a.m. and 6 p.m.