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Date: 6/21/2023
CHICOPEE — The Chicopee Education Committee met on June 8 to discuss traffic and pedestrian safety related to schools.
School Committee member Tim Wagner began by saying some school principals have attended recent meetings to share updates on school safety.
He shared that they have the walking bus program in the Willimansett area, which they are hoping to work with the neighborhood on implementing.
“Some of these neighborhood schools have a really high walking rates because obviously people living within just a couple of miles of the schools they can walk to and from,” Wagner said.
He went on to say that they are hoping to ask the Chicopee Police Department to continue patrols for the area and make sure people are not speeding. “That’s really all the school department has the authority to do at this point,” Wagner added.
Ward 9 City Councilor Mary Beth Pniak-Costello asked if anything was being done regarding crosswalks on the way to schools, making sure the crosswalks are stripped and that signals are in place.
Wagner said there has not been any discussion at any public School Committee meetings — to his knowledge — about it. If it is on city streets, he said he is unsure if it would be a school department issue but will ask about repainting some crosswalks in the area.
Councilor at Large Robert Zygarowski, also chair of the Public Safety Committee, said he spoke with the DPW superintendent and at the time of the meeting, they were in the process of putting all the crosswalk lines down throughout the city, but it takes time. “It is in the works,” he noted.
Union representative and English teacher at Chicopee Comprehensive High School Gina Potorski-Dahl said one of the issues at that school and Lambert-Lavoie Elementary School is the opening of the back gate. She shared that the gate was last opened in the 2007-08 school year which cut down on traffic and accidents on Montgomery Street. She said it also saved “a lot of time and energy and tardies” in the morning.
“I’m not sure exactly why it’s been locked again, but it has [been],” Potorski-Dahl said.
Zygarowski shared that he has asked for the gate to be open for a few hours in the morning and have the janitors lock it up after. “The answer is: the residents don’t want that thing open at all,” he said.
Potorski-Dahl noted that Bowie Elementary construction is going well and is almost complete. There has been traffic there, but it should be settled soon, she said.
Pniak-Costello said she has heard concerns with people passing the buses when their red lights are on and the signs are out.
Wagner said the School Committee voted to endorse a bill that was in the Legislature to mandate that cameras be placed on buses to catch license plates of people who do that.
Wagner shared that he personally voted against the bill because he is unsure where the funding will come from. However, the School Committee did endorse it and are in favor of implementing something like that, he said.
“We just want our students when they walk to and from school or they get picked up from their parents, or if they’re going in a bus, that they’re safe,” concluded Pniak-Costello.