Traffic Woes at Cape St. Claire Elementary School

has a long-standing reputation for excellence, but parents often find it isn’t the easiest school to access. Although the school is visibly located right in the middle of Cape St. Claire, this attribute is also its greatest hindrance.

With well over 700 students, the school has the third-largest elementary student body in the county yet has an exceptionally small parking lot and is bordered on three sides by tree-lined residential roads.

Additionally, these quiet streets mean a greater proportion of students at Cape St. Claire over other schools are considered “walkers” rather than bus riders. Since the parents of many walking students choose to drive them, especially in rainy or cold weather, the number of cars coming into and out of the school lot is high.

According to Anne Arundel County Public Schools Public Information Officer Bob Mosier, “The school’s parking lot is somewhat unique in that is has one point of access and egress. Other schools’ lots have an entrance and exit separated by some distance, but that is not the case at Cape St. Claire.”

The school’s position in the neighborhood has always made student morning drop-offs and afternoon pick-ups a challenge, but lately has become even worse.

Recently, the Anne Arundel County Fire Marshal declared the circle in front of the school—the sole drop-off and pick-up point—a fire lane, and directed school officials to paint yellow “No Parking” warnings all along the curb.

Of the new fire lane markings, Mosier says, “This was done purely for safety reasons, but means that parents waiting for children at dismissal time can no longer park along that curb.”

Adding to the traffic problem is the fact that seasoned crossing guard Annette Hogan is now no longer performing her duties for the school. Known for her superb record in maintaining the traffic flow, the six-year veteran of the Cape St. Claire crosswalk has been replaced by another crossing guard, who is currently accompanied by a uniformed county police officer.

Hogan, who has lived in Cape St. Claire for more than 40 years and had three children attend Cape St. Claire Elementary School, has seen her fair share of traffic issues over the years. When she retired from the banking industry, she decided to continue working part-time to keep herself active.

Hogan began crossing children on Hilltop Drive but quickly moved to the position at the front of the school to help with the increasing traffic problems. “There was a double parking situation on the circle that impeded the flow of traffic and I stopped that by putting cones out every morning,” she says.

“Although I was the crossing guard, I worked with the previous principal and the current principal to also help with traffic inside the circle before my crossing duties started. There are only volunteers inside the circle so I thought my assistance worked out pretty well,” adds Hogan.

The morning traffic flow is especially busy since the cars contain schoolchildren who need to arrive for the 8:10 a.m. school start time, as well as commuters leaving the neighborhood whose early drive happens to take them past the school. The afternoon presents its own problems as a sea of children exit the school all at once.

It’s a rush of organized chaos twice a day during an intense 15-minute period as children, cars and buses converge on the relatively small intersection of Blue Ridge Drive and Hampton Road. Cars stack up inside the parking lot while children cross, then are directed to exit to make room for more vehicles to pull into the lot from both directions of Blue Ridge Drive and from Hampton Road, which runs opposite the school entrance.

Hogan and the parent traffic volunteers alike have seen their fair share of near misses and also have been on the receiving end of plenty of verbal abuse. At an exceptionally busy crossroad next to a small drop-off/pick-up area, emotions run high and tempers flare when the traffic doesn’t move for several minutes.

In light of the recent challenges, the Cape St. Claire Elementary School Parent Teacher Organization addressed the issue at last night’s monthly Board of Governor’s meeting for the .

At the meeting, parent and PTO member Heather Kilpatrick made an impassioned plea to the CSCIA to help support finding a solution to the problem.

“There are not nearly the adequate number of parking spots, whatsoever,” she said to board members. “Parents are parking up and down Hampton, Pine Hill, Plateau and Blue Ridge. Children are leaving school alone [to meet parents in the afternoons], and it is an accident waiting to happen.”

Additionally, reports Kilpatrick, children are being marked late for arriving to school after the 8:10 a.m. school arrival deadline, when the reason for their tardiness is largely due to the amount of traffic.

Kilpatrick says that the lack of parking is an issue that the PTO has been addressing for years, and the best long-term solution would be to create a parking lot in the fields adjacent to the tennis courts. However, she says, several years ago, the school was told that paving it was not an option due to drainage issues.

That explanation is a point Kilpatrick rejects. “If all the new construction on the school [slated to begin this summer] is not an issue with drainage being at the bottom of a hill, then I find it hard to believe that the flat playing fields have a problem with drainage,” she explained to the CSCIA board members.

Kilpatrick reports that Hogan’s absence has caused real issues for those parents who walk or drive their children to school. Lynn Parris, a parent who walks her second-grader to school and attended last night’s meeting told the CSCIA board, “I also have a four-year-old and a baby, and now with Annette being gone, we almost got hit.”

CSCIA president Sam Gallagher said that he recently has had several conversations with concerned parties about the parking issue and acknowledged that the traffic back-ups were an issue even for those residents who don’t have children at the school.

Gallagher also indicated that the Cape St. Claire Recreation Council found the lack of parking to be an issue on weekends during games. “That said, the main issue to paving some of that area is that the property is owned by two different departments of government: the schools and parks and recreation,” he reports.

The problem has become so pressing that it has also caught the attention of local elected officials. County Councilman Dick Ladd (R-5) has agreed to examine the situation and also has met with Cape St. Claire Elementary School Principal Donna Pergerson, according to CSC PTO board member Geralyn Valente.

CSCIA Governor Mary Lamb provided some relief to the concerned group saying that the engineer from the Traffic Engineering Division assigned to the area of the county that includes Cape St. Claire will be studying the situation very soon. “We are just one of many schools with needs,” reported Lamb, “but we’d like to give you some relief right now,”

In addition, the CSCIA board unanimously agreed to hold a town hall-style meeting in the near future in order to provide a forum for concerned parents and residents alike.

For his part, Mosier explains that the school has begun to permit parents to park on the grassy area as an “overflow” lot, with an enter and exit ramp connecting to the staff parking lot.

While this serves as a solution for parking during school events, Mosier acknowledges that it is has its drawbacks. “It is a tenuous situation as well, since rainy days or other issues can make that inaccessible,” he says.

Mosier emphasizes that the school is committed to doing everything it can to assist. “Some parents may say that the easy solution is to add a parking lot,” he says. “That would be done through our capital budget. There are about a dozen or so other projects in that category, but the school has been up front with parents about the unlikely nature of funding coming about for such a project.”

The slow economy may have a lot to do with the current situation. Mosier indicates that parking lots and similar projects have generally not been funded.

At the same time, some parent volunteers feel that, as more and more previously stay-at-home mothers and fathers look to re-enter the workforce sooner than planned, there are more and more students being dropped off at school while their parents continue to work. Previously, these stay-at-home parents may have taken the time to walk their children to school.

About the only clear answer is that there isn’t a single good solution. Every possibility either has drawbacks or reasons that prevent it from being considered.

With the nature of the problem affecting so many people in the community—regardless of whether or not they have students at Cape St. Claire—the parking situation has quickly escalated to a hot button issue. Still, says Mosier, “parents should be assured that the school continues to do everything it can to assist in the matter.”