NICK GOSNELL
Hutch Post
HUTCHINSON, Kan. — The only full time one-way street in the City of Hutchinson is going away. That is Cleveland Street in front of Graber Elementary.
"We've been in conversations with the city a number of different times over the past years to remedy that issue of drop-off, pick-up in the morning and then again in the afternoon with the one-way street, the challenges that it causes for safety for our students and our families," said Randy Norwood with Hutchinson USD 308.
This will require some changes over the summer, but no big-time construction.
"We think we have a good plan in place," Norwood said. "We're gonna try to execute that this summer and have it in place for the start of the school year. We're going to restripe the streets, paint the curbing so it's appropriately identified where they can have short-term parking. We're going to establish a three-lane area at the entrance exit onto 17th and off of 17th. We'll have two lanes that will allow a right turn or a left turn onto 17th Street and then a one-lane turn off of 17th going, which would be south, onto the street as well. Our drop-off area now will be to the east side of the street and then the one lane on the west side of the street will be continued traffic through with no parking and no stopping."
This adjustment is important as a lot of parents drop their kids off these days, but not all of them.
"We've done some studies and some surveys of our parents to try to determine how many students are actually walking or riding their bikes to school," Norwood said. "It's not very many. Most students are dropped off via their parents in their vehicle in the morning. We just want to make sure that we provide safe passage for that. Those students that are walking or riding their bike, do need to cross the street there at Cleveland to the west. We want to have some safe crosswalks in that area. That's kind of what has brought this to the forefront, is that some of our crosswalks that we've had traditionally in the past, we can no longer have because of the guidelines. We needed to provide some other aspects to be able to pick up, drop off, and for kids to be able to cross the street as well."
The intent is to have all the changes made by the end of July.
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