Traffic near schools raises safety concerns

Area of Payne

and Garden streets is problem

By KURT NESBITT

Journal Staff Writer

NEW ULM -- Rhonda Ristow said she gets frustrated when she takes her two children to Jefferson Elementary School.

She frequently sees vehicles double-parked and left running and blocking traffic, cars parked in yellow zones between crosswalks, parents and children darting around cars while crossing the street and motorists speeding past schools just as children are being released.

"It's a big traffic area and people speed down the street with disregard for the fact that they're in a school zone," said Ristow, who volunteers and is a member of the PTA at Jefferson.

Ristow was one of two women who wrote letters to the New Ulm Police Department outlining their concerns with school children and the traffic around the district's campus on Garden and Payne streets. Ristow said she was encouraged to write a letter after a phone conversation with police.

Those letters were shared with city and school district officials in February. The New Ulm Public Safety Commission met twice last month to discuss the issue and brainstormed 10 ideas for both short-term and long-term solutions.

City officials have visited the traffic issue around the schools before, but the situation was highlighted on Jan. 22, one day after a 7-year old girl received a broken leg from a collision with an oncoming vehicle while she and some friends were crossing the street.

On Thursday, the commission discussed a number of those ideas. For example, building a new east-west street between Payne and Garden is a project that might surface in a few years, because Payne Street is scheduled for reconstruction.

A special parking lane on Payne Street is another idea that could be part of that project. The council also talked about using traffic cones on Payne to better outline the school zone.

Superintendent Harold Remme said the district has already put up additional signs and other reminders to parents and drivers and continues to discuss either restricting parking on Garden Street near parking lot entrances or eliminating parking on Garden in the block between the school parking lot entrances.

Remme said the school district has struggled with traffic patterns for a number of years. He said the issue revolves mainly around Jefferson Elementary School and Payne Street, although Garden also gets busy before and after school.

Another idea is approaching Minnesota State University-Mankato about conducting a traffic study in the area. New Ulm Police Chief Erv Weinkauf said he has met with faculty at MSU about the possibility of such a study.

He said the Police Department regularly patrols the area around the high school and Jefferson Elementary during the morning and the afternoon, when the area is most congested.

Weinkauf said that police generally try to enforce the traffic laws without writing tickets but said citations will be an option if the problem continues.

"I'm concerned with the amount of traffic and with parents getting out and double parking," he said. "It's a case where good common sense can go a long, long way to help with a problem."