Officials: Winter Park High feeder roads safe

Armed with a bike helmet, neon-yellow reflective vest, backpack and navy blue Schwinn Cruiser, resident William Shallcross regularly rides the city’s streets and trails, jotting notes in his head on their accessibility, safety and ease of usage, which he then relays to city, county and school officials.

In October, the roads led him to Winter Park High School, where his daughter is a student. Displeased with what he witnessed in drop-off and pick-up protocol and pedestrian safety, Shallcross set his sights on improving the process.

“I want to make the streets, especially those by our schools, safer,” he said.

After the school officials reviewed his and others’ safety concerns, one of the high school’s four gated entrances, located on Bellewood Drive and the primary entrance for school buses, was closed to pedestrian traffic and all student drop-off this semester. Officials deemed that it was unsafe for students to share an entrance with bus traffic and they were never intended to do so.

Instead of viewing this as a small victory, Shallcross said he felt the school fixed one problem, but made the rest worse. Now traffic was increased to the remaining three gates, at Summerfield Road, Lyndale Boulevard and Greene Drive, and, he said, there aren’t adequate sidewalks to filter the students into campus.

But WPHS administrators, school board members and city officials say the entrances are safe and as efficient as they can be. They said that given the school’s residential-locked location, they do the best they can to improve traffic flow without burdening neighboring residents.

“We’re surrounded by residential areas so we only have so many access points and traffic flow patterns that we can do safely,” Winter Park High School Principal Tim Smith said. “…We’re always doing all that we can to ensure student safety.”

Road rules

Butch Margraf, traffic manager for Winter Park’s Pedestrian & Bicycle Advisory Board, said the city has done all it can to help WPHS, as well as all other Winter Park schools, to be as safely accessible as possible for both car and pedestrian traffic.

“When you have a school and it’s morning drop-off time, there’s 15 to 20 minutes where there’s a lot of people and it can get chaotic,” he said. “… If we could find a way to eliminate that we would, but it’s a school and this is what happens.”

After the school underwent extensive renovations in 2006, it was made sure that every intended student entrance had a sidewalk entrance for those who walk or ride their bikes to enter the campus, Margraf said.

Art King, deputy chief for the Winter Park Police Department, said he has received very few complaints on the WPHS area’s safety, and has no recollection of any reported incidents in which students were reported in harm’s way. “We believe the area is very safe,” he said.

Joie Cadle, school board representative for the district that includes WPHS, said due to its location in the heart of a residential neighborhood, the school has faced traffic issues since it opened in 1968, but that all involved are working to overcome these issues the best they can.

“We take the safety of children getting onto our campus as a very serious matter,” Cadle said. “All we can do is make sure all the four entrances are working the way they should.”

She said there are currently no plans to reevaluate any of the school’s traffic or pedestrian pathways, which William Shallcross says leaves his job unfinished.

“I would just like the school to take responsibility for the problem and come up with a solution,” he said.

Public perception

Up to a half-hour prior to the sounding of the dismissal bell at WPHS, the line of cars starts piling up.

It’s 1:45 p.m. when Jenny Collado drives up Summerfield Road to the school and parks her car out front to wait for her son. “I get here early to try to beat the traffic that stacks up,” she said, glancing in her rear-view mirror at the line of cars, nearly 20-deep idling behind her, now just after 2 p.m. “But then again I don’t know if it’s any different at any other school.”

Sandy DeWoody, parked a few cars back and also waiting on her son, said she doesn’t want to show up 25 minutes before the bell rings, but that it’s just the reality if she wants to beat the terrible traffic.

“It’s not ideal, but I’m not sure how the school could make it any better,” she said.

Collado said she’s noticed a slight increase in traffic with the closing of the Bellewood Drive gate, but that the extra commute time is worth it for student safety.

“I’d rather have my son have security at school, and have people only coming in from one or two entrances, than have them come in from everywhere,” she said.

Robert Maisenholder, who has lived off of Summerfield Road less than a block from the school since 1977, said that limiting the number of entrances to the school has increased the traffic coming in and off of his street, and that it’s been a problem he’s watched develop continuously as the school has grown.

“It’s a problem, but it’s just one of those facts of life that you can just wish wasn’t,” he said.