Lakes Highway District OKs school traffic concept

HAYDEN — The prospects for a new elementary school on Prairie Avenue got better on Monday night. Lakes Highway District commissioners voted 2-1 to accept the Coeur d’Alene School District’s proposal for traffic flow at its proposed elementary school site on Prairie Avenue. Commissioners Rod Twete and Weston Montgomery voted in favor, while commissioner Diane Fountain voted in opposition.

Lakes Highway District director Eric Shanley said he supported the concept, which J-U-B Engineers had drawn up for the school district with input from the highway district, he said. The concept put a center median on both the east and west legs of the intersection at Vantage Drive and Prairie Avenue. It also controlled traffic turning into and out of an emergency service access at the school, Shanley said.

Twete and Montgomery requested that the emergency service gate be at least 50 feet from the outside pavement, in order to allow big trucks to get in, and to give parents who enter accidentally while attempting to drop off kids enough room to turn around.

Fountain asked Shanley who would pay for improvements to Moselle Drive, which commissioners had previously approved for a 12-unit development. Shanley replied that no further improvements would be necessary because the road will be a standard city street. Shanley said he didn’t anticipate any need to widen the road due to school traffic.

“It’s put to city standards and is adequate to handle buses and parents of children dropping off kids,” Montgomery said.

Fountain also asked if the traffic median would make maintenance work more difficult for highway district crews. Shanley said that the work would be “slightly more difficult,” but said crews would “use more chemical to melt snow between curbs.”

Shanley said, “It wouldn’t substantially affect maintenance operations at all.”

The school district will pay for the median, said Shanley and Coeur d’Alene School District director of operations Jeff Voeller.

Fountain said she still wanted school traffic to enter from the south on interior roadways, and not on Prairie Avenue. She also said that the project had been rushed, that due diligence hadn’t been done, and the highway district hadn’t been given enough notice by the school district.

Montgomery granted that the project “has been rushed to a degree because of the time constraints of the school district,” but called the situation a win-win.

“It’s a plus for us. We gain and they gain.”

Twete added that as development builds out to the south, access will come from that direction. The agreement would reflect that, he said.

“It’s not an issue at all,” he said.

Montgomery motioned to accept the J-U-B Engineers concept and have the lawyers for the highway and school districts work out the agreement. Twete seconded, and the two voted in favor with Fountain against.