In February of this year, when I first heard rumors about the Concord School Board’s plan to have all 19 Rundlett school buses enter and exit via Noyes Street when the new school is completed, I thought it was a joke. I remember saying that the city would never allow that since it would overwhelm the neighborhood.
Then, in March, the neighborhood was invited to a school board presentation. This was when we were first informed that indeed, the plan, which had already been finalized and presented to the city, was to have all 19 buses enter and exit via Noyes and Cypress Streets every school day. The math is not difficult — buses would enter and exit Noyes Street 76 times a day.
But that is not all. The staff parking lot at the end of Cypress Street would be doubled, from 30 to 60 cars. Coming and going: 120 times. So we have buses coming through this two-block neighborhood 76 times a day and cars 120 times a day. That is outside traffic entering and exiting a little neighborhood 196 times a day, at commuter times, when residents are also trying to enter and exit Noyes Street. I don’t think we are far off the mark in saying this is overwhelming.
The City of Concord had prohibited thru traffic in this neighborhood when it put up signs indicating “No Right Turn” on Clinton Street to any of the college streets. This was done to curtail thru traffic because of safety concerns. The prohibition remains today. The city must apply the same measures now for buses. It is all outside traffic that it curtailed years ago; it cannot responsibly open the flood gates now.
At the July 23 Transportation Policy Advisory Committee meeting that a large number from our neighborhood attended, many of us presented all the concerns that we had brought up to the school board. Because the board has insisted that the school building must be between the buses and the parent cars, I focused on this and presented the following:
The Concord School Board has asserted that the only reason it plans to have school buses at the rear of Rundlett, and parent drop off and pick up at the front of the building, is for safety — that this will be much safer than the current system.
Well, it does sound safer. But I contend that their plan is not about safety at all; it is about expediency. The current system of having cars and buses divided by discontinuous barriers, is far too slow and some parents have apparently complained. (We heard one parent at one of the School Board meetings voice frustration about having to wait in the queue. We have also heard that school staff do not like to have to supervise the students as they leave the school.) The cars and buses crawl through the school grounds at five miles per hour and under. This, in fact, is precisely the reason why it is so safe, and the reason it has been safe for 60 years! Remove the buses and you enable the cars to go much faster, creating an unsafe situation on grounds. Add to this the extremely unsafe situation created on Noyes and Cypress Streets, where the buses would certainly not be traveling at five miles per hour.
I live on Cypress Street. There are many kids who live on my street and they walk to and from school every day. No sidewalks. Little kids on the street coping with 19 (20,000-25,000 pound) school buses. What are the odds.
The Noyes/Cypress neighborhood, which advocated to keep Rundlett at its current location, knew there would be a greater traffic impact with the new middle school, and we were prepared for that. More staff vehicles can be absorbed — a bus fleet cannot.
The advisory committee listened to us and is advising the city council to tell the school board it must alter its plans to have 19 buses use Noyes and Cypress Streets as their entrance and exit to the new Rundlett. It is now up to our city council to follow the advice of its committee. Please take the time to contact your city councilor on behalf of the families, including many children, who live in the Noyes/Cypress/College Street neighborhood.
Jeanne Cusson lives on Cypress Street in Concord.