Indian Hills residents concerned for safety after traffic diverted onto 27th Street

Students leaving Broken Arrow School and South Junior High approach the crosswalk at 27th and Belle Haven Drive, Friday, April 24, 2015, as school lets out.

Residents of the Indian Hills neighborhood near 27th and Louisiana streets are asking city officials to take action to make their streets safer, and at a neighborhood meeting this week those officials vowed to try.

Construction on the South Lawrence Traffic Way closed 31st Street and diverted city traffic to 27th Street. Resident Laura Gloeckner said their formerly kid-friendly neighborhood street has turned into a dangerous bypass for drivers looking to avoid the stoplights and traffic on 23rd Street.

“If anybody in Lawrence didn’t know they could use 27th Street instead of 23rd Street, they do now,” Gloeckner said.

Gloeckner said she thinks that because the neighborhood is near Broken Arrow Elementary School, South Middle School and Naismith and Broken Arrow parks, the children present on neighborhood streets should make traffic concerns a priority for the city.

“Our children and our safety is a priority over our drivers,” Gloeckner said. “Beware of Momma Bear. I will not be satisfied until legitimate traffic-calming measures are put in place.”

Gloeckner said that many drivers ignore speed limits and school zones in the area. Lawrence Police Department patrol captain Anthony Brixius said that over a four-day period this week, officers made 34 car stops in the area.

To rally her neighbors, Gloeckner helped organize a meeting with city leaders at Broken Arrow Elementary School Wednesday to demand traffic-calming measures. More than 70 residents attended, and city officials including Mayor Jeremy Farmer, Brixius and city public works assistant director Mark Thiel took notes, gave feedback and pledged to make efforts to remedy the situation.

Gloeckner said the meeting was important because her neighbors “wanted to be heard.”

Carrie Mantooth, who lives on 27th Street, said that on any given morning, it takes her about three minutes to back out of her driveway due to the increase in traffic flow.

“It’s not a matter of if a child fatality could occur, it’s when,” Mantooth said.

Gloeckner, who said she purchased her home as a mother of three because of the neighborhood’s location, said her neighbors have been contemplating moving because of the increased traffic.

“We don’t want people to feel they have to sell their homes,” Gloeckner said. “(The city) is going to have to take specific measures to divert traffic back to 31st and 23rd streets.”

After listening to the neighbors’ concerns, Brixius said patrol officers would increase their focus on the Indian Hills area.

“We may not issue everyone a citation, but we’ll have such a presence that people go, ‘I know I better not speed through that area,'” Brixius said.

City engineer David Cronin said he expected the problem to ease after portions of 31st Street reopen this summer.

“31st Street from Louisiana to Iowa (streets) is scheduled to open in July and we’re hoping the traffic will go to 31st and 23rd (streets),” Cronin said. “We are actively looking at traffic-calming measures.”

But Mantooth, a Broken Arrow school counselor, said she thought the issue would continue because drivers are now conditioned to use 27th Street.

“Why weren’t measures put in place before?” Mantooth asked the officials.

Thiel said two years ago, city commissioners approved neighbors’ requests to implement traffic-calming measures at the 27th Street location, Thiel said, but it was “approved without funding.” Thiel assured residents that the Indian Hills neighborhood is “at the top of the traffic-calming list.”

Among the potential options discussed were roundabouts, traffic signs, adding sidewalks and “high-intensity activated crosswalk” signals, which Thiel said feature a button pedestrians press to activate a traffic light.

When the meeting adjourned, attendees signed a letter to city commissioners requesting traffic-calming funding. Farmer said he would study how much the city is spending on enforcement on the street and use that in considerations for funds in the 2016 budget.

While many neighbors, including Gloeckner, want immediate relief, Thiel said it would take some time, and pledged that the city would study the area so that they could come to a solution.

“We have to evaluate that we don’t do any harm by creating a problem bigger than before,” Thiel said. “The way we do that is by traffic counts and studying the traffic volume to look at what’s warranted, be it a stop sign or crosswalk.”

In the mean time, the neighbors have pledged to drive just 20 mph along the mile-long 27th Street and are creating yard signs urging Lawrence residents to take another route, Gloeckner said.

“I know it’s more convenient, but it’s a neighborhood street and they need to take 23rd Street,” Gloeckner said. “Drive like your kids live here.”