A traffic study found that only minor improvements to roads and sidewalks would be required to accommodate car, bus and pedestrian traffic for the Concord School District’s new middle school, if the project moves ahead at the Broken Ground location in East Concord.

The study, presented to a school board subcommittee, confirmed what a preliminary look did last year: that stop signs at a key neighborhood intersection should be more visible, South Curtisville Road should be lined, that there were sufficient sidewalks in close vicinity to the school but that they lacked ADA compliance at intersections, and that a traffic light at the intersection of Curtisville Road and East Side Drive would eventually be needed. Costs for these improvements — plus the two internal roads connecting the new school to city streets — are included in the project’s $152 million budget, architects said, but a cost range or figure for them has never been made public.

The traffic study was presented in late October before the passage of an amendment to the district’s charter on Election Day required the school board to get voter approval to move the middle school to this area of East Concord from the current Rundlett site in the south end. What the next steps are, and how the project might proceed, are yet to be charted.

Beyond the findings of the study, members of the school board’s transportation subcommittee also shared concerns about insufficient bike lanes in the area and the lack of sidewalks in nearby neighborhoods.

Designs show both pickup-dropoff and faculty traffic using an entrance on Portsmouth Street, while buses will use a separate entrance on South Curtisville Road. The road leading into the drop-off loop is about a quarter-mile long, ensuring cars lining up to fetch or drop off kids from school won’t be blocking traffic on the main road. The staff and visitor parking lot, in front of the school’s main entrance, would also be accessed on this road. A parking lot at the bus lane would service the fields, track, and basketball courts behind the school.

The main road in from Portsmouth Street would also have a 10-foot-wide, shared walk-bike path for kids.

Because the middle school starts and ends an hour later than the nearby Broken Ground and Mill Brook elementary schools — middle school runs 8:30 a.m.-3:30 p.m. while elementary school runs 7:30 p.m.-2:30 p.m. — there would be no issues with overlapping congestion, Superintendent Kathleen Murphy said at the meeting.

Middle schools are required to provide bus transportation for all students living outside of 1 ½ miles of the school. Because the district does not want students walking across the bridge over Interstate 393 on East Side Drive, that distance will be somewhat shorter for the new location, but the number of buses and costs are not expected to go up as part of the change compared to the current location. As Terry Crotty, the district’s transportation director told the Monitor last month, there is capacity in the current bus resources to accommodate the change.

The study assumes most students this age would be using the sidewalk systems to bike to school, said Corey Spetelunas, a safety project manager with the state Department of Transportation and district parent.

“Technically that’s illegal to have a bike on a sidewalk,” Spetelunas said. But, he added, “I wouldn’t encourage a kid to ride on the shoulder if the sidewalk’s there.”

Nicole Fox, a transportation engineer and district parent serving on the committee, suggested the group consider recommending that more shared-use paths be added to the neighborhoods around the schools.

Elizabeth Lahey, another parent member of the committee, noted that several neighborhoods on the far side of I-393 where students may opt to walk or ride their bikes to school lack sidewalks. If they could be added, she said, “that would be a way to connect in three or four pretty big neighborhoods to walkability.”

City leaders have previously indicated that any infrastructure work in the area to support this project not already in its budget will be funded fully by the district – the city will not pick up the tab.