CEDAR CITY — Iron County School District officials are looking into ways to improve pedestrian safety near Canyon View high and middle schools in the wake of multiple close calls recently reported.

The issue, which focuses on vehicle and pedestrian traffic along 1925 North, the street that runs between the two schools’ campuses, was discussed at length during the regular school board meeting on Sept, 27. Several residents addressed the topic during the public comment period toward the beginning of the meeting.

“The problem is horrible,” said Sheral Whicker, who lives in the nearby Fiddlers Canyon area. She said she’s taken videos with her phone showing “kids crossing everywhere, much like Frogger.”

Another commenter, Brittney Shakespeare, said she was struck by a car in the crosswalk as a student in 2016, causing a serious knee injury that has needed multiple surgeries to repair.

Renae Slack commented on how the issue affects her children and other student-athletes who must cross the street multiple times a day to get to practice.

“It is a problem,” agreed Iron County School District board member Jeff Corry, who urged trustees to address the problem “sooner than later, before something real bad happens.”

“At any rate, it’s got to be taken care of,” he added.

Later in the meeting, district officials said they’ve already been studying the problem in order to come up with both short-term and long-term solutions.

Superintendent Lance Hatch outlined three possible suggestions during the meeting: 

1. Make the exits from the parking lots right turn only. “It’s a low-cost thing,” Hatch said. “It would require some striping, some signage and some enforcement.”
2. Have a trained crossing guard guide students across the street at the crosswalk by the tennis courts. “Having a crossing guard would ensure that kids are grouped, and then you can take them through and still let the traffic go through,” Hatch said. “That would be extremely valuable.” Such a move, he noted, would require the cooperation of Cedar City, which hires and trains crossing guards through its police department.
3. Install fences along sections of the Cedar Middle School property to help funnel the students toward the crosswalks. “Fences might be necessary to keep students from crossing right in the middle area,” Hatch noted.

District business administrator Todd Hess said that during a recent informal observation, he counted 100 students crossing the street outside a crosswalk during the afternoon, compared with around 30 earlier that same morning.

“We want the kids to be safe,” Hess said. “As I’ve watched, kids are crossing mostly at the intersections where the ingress and egress is into those parking lots. There aren’t too many that are crossing in the middle of that block or in the middle of that area.”

He said he found that day several students crossing just to the east of the crosswalk.

“So they don’t go all the way over to the crosswalk,” he added. “That’s where a crossing guard might really help there.” 

As for the idea of a second crosswalk further to the east, Hunter Shaheen, the district’s facilities manager, said that according to state law, a second crosswalk is not permitted within 600 feet of an intersection crosswalk. 

“So where that puts us right now is it puts us very close into that middle of between the two schools,” said Shaheen, adding that UDOT regulations also have limitations regarding reduced-speed school crossing zones.

Shaheen said he considers adding a crossing guard to be one of the best short-term solutions.

“That’s where we really feel a crossing guard is the absolute No. 1 priority to get done and funnel those kids to the crosswalk location,” he said, noting that a crossing guard will be able to guide large groups of kids at a time across the street while allowing traffic to move more freely along 1925 North.

Possible long-term solutions might involve the reconfiguration of the parking lots and sidewalks, officials noted during the meeting.

“I think there’s some things that can easily be done over time that will help make that a lot smoother than it is,” school board member Dave Staheli said. “Let’s do what we can quickly that doesn’t cost much and then get … developing a bigger plan.”

The board members then directed Hatch and other district officials to continue working on solutions, including hosting a “town hall” public information-gathering meeting in the near future.

Heather Stonely, who is a parent of a Cedar Middle School student, said officials on Friday sent out a survey via the Remind app asking parents of both schools for their input.

“There’s no striping in the parking lots or intersections to show where pedestrians are supposed to cross,” Stonely said. “So it’s hard to judge the middle school students for crossing unsafely when we haven’t provided them safe access.”

Meanwhile, Hatch told Cedar City News on Monday, “As for the town hall, we are looking at bringing a group of 10 or so parents to come and do some work ahead of time so that when we have a town hall, we are discussing solutions rather than simply rehashing the problems.”

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