Community Commentary

Georgia Ingram

One would think that in designing an elementary school, the first concern

would be to create an environment that ensures a safe place for students

to learn and grow. Then one could focus on the academic quality of the

school, followed by the many other aspects that make a school enriching.

Those who have designed the new Newport Coast Elementary School, at the

corner of Newport Coast Drive and Ridge Park Road and scheduled to open

in the fall of 2000, have done a lot right. Indeed, much thought went

into the Italian villa-style aesthetics of the new school, which were the

subject of a number of Daily Pilot editorial pieces last year.

While great effort had been devoted to many aspects of the new school,

all the way down to the controversial terra cotta-tiled roof insisted by

the Irvine Co., child safety has either been forgotten or ignored. Many

of the students who will attend the school live across Newport Coast

Drive from the school and, because they live within a one-mile radius of

the school, will not be afforded a school bus pickup.

So, to attend school each day, these elementary school children will be

required to cross Newport Coast Drive -- a six-lane thoroughfare that is

the main artery between the burgeoning coastal communities of Newport

Beach and Laguna Beach (and soon to be Crystal Cove) -- on the one hand,

and the San Joachim Hills Toll Road, Costa Mesa and San Diego freeways,

and the inland cities, on the other.

Certainly, one would have expected that the Newport-Mesa Unified School

District and the Orange County Board of Education would have considered

this an extraordinary safety risk and made appropriate provisions for it.

One would have also expected that the Irvine Co., which offered the site,

would have also given safety as much consideration as aesthetics.

Apparently, however, these reasonable expectations shared by dozens of

parents in the new community are misguided. A footbridge over Newport

Coast Road is an obvious choice, the cost of which is minimal in relation

to the great safety issue that it solves.

Similar footbridges have been built in two other Orange County schools in

recent years. Not only has the safety problem not been resolved, at a

recent meeting between Newport Coast Elementary School parents, the

district and the county, parents were informed that it will never be

solved and that the children who attend Newport Coast Elementary School

will simply have to assume that safety risk if they want to attend the

Newport Coast Elementary School.

In fact, although the school is expected to open in September, a traffic

study of the area has not been done in more than two years. A study would

have to be done in order to place a crossing guard at the location.

An Orange County Traffic Operations/Program Development Division Public

Facilities and Resources Department representative informed parents at

the same meeting that the county would not install a footbridge, nor had

it even planned to install blinking lights to warn oncoming automobiles

that children might be crossing. Nor does it plan to even reduce the

speed limit around the school crossing from the current 60 mph during the

early morning and afternoon hours when children are going to and from

school.

While a crossing guard may be employed in the morning, and while the

representative did say they might consider a generic sign, warning

motorists who noticed the sign to reduce speed to 25 mph “when children

are present,” nothing else will be done to solve a patently dangerous

problem.

Maybe there will be a crossing guard in the morning, and maybe that will

help, but it certainly does not ensure child safety. Moreover, it does

nothing to even begin to address all the other times when children go to

school -- for soccer games, baseball games and myriad after-school,

weekend and evening events when a crossing guard will not be present.

The county’s entirely inadequate response to this problem demonstrates an

inexplicable lack of concern for the safety of the children who live in

Newport Coast. The intersection of Newport Coast Drive and San Joaquin

Hills Road is an 18-vehicle intersection, including turning lanes. The

intersection between Newport Coast Drive and Ridge Park Road is a few

lanes less. In the mornings and afternoons, there are dozens of

construction vehicles and large trucks that travel along this highway.

How can the children, parents, teachers and baby-sitters who live on the

other side of those intersections in neighboring communities be expected

to negotiate such hazards to have access to school facilities?

A pedestrian structure must be built across Newport Coast Drive to bridge

the school with the half of the community on the other side of the

six-lane, 60-mph highway that their children will have to cross.

The residents of Newport Coast pay hundreds of thousands of dollars in

mello roos taxes that are to be used to build the infrastructure in this

unincorporated area of Orange County. While we have many parents willing

and able to become involved in the exciting process of building a new

school, we do not have a city council to look out for our interests.

We are counting on the County of Orange and the Newport-Mesa Unified

School District to make decisions and plans that are right for our

children and our community. Constructing a footbridge to the new

elementary is not a choice -- it’s a safety must.

Hopefully, it will not take a tragedy to make clear that a footbridge is

the only responsible option to ensure our community’s new school is not

only aesthetically pleasing and academically excellent, but also safe.