Sunday, April 9, 2000

Area streets not at pace with growth

Talk to Amy Wilkinson, PTA president of Dawson Elementary, or David Abarca, a Brighton Village Neighborhood Association member, and they'll tell you that Farm-to-Market Road 2444, where two youths were killed in recent accidents, isn't the only terrifying drive in southern Corpus Christi.
   With rapid growth and an infrastructure that isn't keeping pace, motorists increasingly are using two-way, 35-mph lanes as 60-mph speedways connecting the farthest points of town - from Yorktown, Bear Creek and Kings Crossing - to other parts of the city, they said.
   It's creating more than headaches, Abarca says. It's making streets like Cedar Pass Drive and Cimarron, Lipes and Yorktown boulevards downright dangerous as the rush-hour arteries turn into mini versions of Saratoga Boulevard, which has as many as six lanes and a center turning lane on some stretches.
   "Just last week after dropping my son off at Kaffie and driving down Lipes to Staples, a lady in a Suburban pulled up behind me, flashing her lights and honking her horn," said Abarca, general manager of Fast Facts Mail Service and also Kaffie PTA president. "She got so perturbed that I was abiding by the school zone speed limit that she crossed the double yellow line onto oncoming traffic, forcing those drivers to brake and make allowances for her. And as she sped on by, she provided me with an all-too familiar but unpleasant hand gesture."
   Later and later
   Wilkinson lives less than a mile from Dawson Elementary and Grant Middle School, which are a few blocks apart. Yet every weekday, she must leave the house no later than 7:30 a.m. to get her 9-year-old daughter and 12-year-old son to their schools by 8. Although it means getting up earlier, Wilkinson prefers driving them because traffic has made walking to school unsafe. If she leaves later than 7:30 a.m., Wilkinson gets caught up in work-commute gridlock.
   "I know the volume of traffic affects our school because of the amount of tardiness," Wilkinson said. "It's phenomenal how many kids come in late. Just last Monday we had 75 students tardy. It's gotten ridiculous."
   Getting worse
   Abarca, who has lived in Brighton Village for 14 years, recalls Cimarron as nothing more than a dirt road that construction vehicles used as a back road into the residential neighborhood. Cimarron today carries a far greater number of cars, trucks and school buses than it ever was meant to, he said.
   "It's a major thoroughfare, yet it's not much more than a caliche road with a little bit of blacktop on it," Abarca said.
   With another subdivision and the E.E. and Jovita Mireles Elementary School in the works, the dangerous driving will create even more problems, Abarca said.
   Abarca's association has brought the Cimarron matter to the city's attention, suggesting that at least a center lane is in order, but to no avail.
   "It's been an ongoing issue for 15 years," Abarca said. "The answer has always been that traffic doesn't warrant this request. But the traffic has gotten to the point that I think the question not only warrants, but necessitates, action now."
  
 

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