COLORADO SPRINGS, Co — Before last year, the city only had school zones around elementary schools. Then, in March of 2023, a high school foreign exchange student lost her life crossing the street at Doherty High School. The city then added a school zone there last year and changed its practices to put more school zones in place at middle and high schools this year.
Todd Frisbie is an engineer with the city of Colorado Springs. He says the city prioritizes the schools that get new zones based on traffic volume, crash history, and number of lanes. I'm told they would like to spread out the work evenly throughout the city. Let's take a closer look…
The map below shows where the city will be adding more school zones this fall in orange. The list includes Jenkins Middle School, Rampart High School, Carmel Community School, Mitchell High School, and Vista Ridge High School. New zones in green are also ready to go: Coronado High School, Holmes Middle School, Pine Creek High School, Sand Creek Elementary, and Sand Creek High School.
City engineers I talked with say money from the capital budget and speeding tickets are paying for the equipment. I also talked with parents dropping off their kids for school. They tell me distracted driving and speeding are big problems in school zones.
Betsy Kennison is a parent at Ridge View Elementary School. She tells me "Just be aware these are small children. You once were small so just be aware that there are little kids" Tabitha McMullen is also a parent who says "Just slow down. It could be your kid out there walking and the same as our kids."
The city says it plans to add more than 20 school zones in the next two or three years.
As we were doing this school zone story, our crossing guard pointed out this tree branch to us. It's blocking the sign that says "School Zone" that's already here which is an obvious problem. We reached out to the city to let them know. The city tells me crews are going to come out and trim that tree.
If you would like to report a problem to the city, use the free GO COS app!
Email Reporter Jake Walker at jake.walker@koaa.com. Follow @JakeOnAiron Instagram and Jake Walker Media on Facebook.
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