As the school year kicks off, Sewanhaka and Floral Park-Bellerose school board members and administrators are looking to quickly fix an issue that’s leaving young students with unexpectedly long, unsupervised walks to and from school, including crossing busy Jericho Turnpike.
New bus routes mean some children who previously were, or thought they would be, served by buses are not. Parents raised the alarm over the issue at Sewanhaka’s late August meeting, where one said he was concerned for his new seventh grader’s roughly 1.6-mile walk, as she weighs only 60 pounds and is 4’8”.
Sewanhaka Superintendent Regina Agrusa said 62 student families are currently impacted by an unexpectedly long walk and the Jericho Turnpike crossing.
Sewanhaka and Floral Park-Bellerose Trustees Rosemarie Peltonen and Jaclyn O’Donohue spoke alongside Agrusa, asking the Floral Park Board of Trustees to add additional crossing guards to students’ frequently traveled walking paths to ensure their safety.
“There are a number of children on the north side [of the village] who are ineligible for the bus,” O’Donohue said. “For those children to have to walk all the way to Flower Avenue [where there is a crossing guard] to cross is a longer path for them, incredibly early in the morning on an unsafe road to cross.”
“I’m asking for a couple of considerations,” O’Donohue continued. “The first would be for the Flower crossing guard to be there earlier in the morning so that the high school children can cross safely.”
The second thing she asked for was an additional crossing guard. She asked for a guard to be placed at the Emerson Avenue to Plainfield Avenue Jericho Turnpike crossing, as she believed it was the “path of least resistance” for students. If a guard could not be stationed there, she asked for one to be located at the Willis Avenue to Depan Avenue Jericho Turnpike crossing.
The village traditionally staffs the crossing guards necessary for schools and currently has guards at multiple high-traffic intersections.
Trustee Jennifer Stewart told the school representatives she thought the school board should have acted earlier on this issue and that the school board “should know” about these things in advance.
Stewart and the board said they were working on addressing the issue as quickly as possible, as they believed student safety was a top priority. Mayor Kevin Fitzgerald said he expected to be able to provide support within the next one or two weeks.
“We don’t have an official stance on it yet, but we will probably put someone there for the students,” Fitzgerald said.
Fitzgerald said it was unlikely the village would place a guard at the Emerson Avenue and Plainfield Avenue Jericho Turnpike crossing, as it was a dangerous, triangle-shaped intersection children should be discouraged from crossing.
He said if the village decides to add another crossing guard, it would likely be at the Willis Avenue and Depan Avenue Jericho Turnpike crossing.
Fitzgerald said the village would likely temporarily station a village parking attendant there initially to see if children are actually crossing there. He was uncertain whether the young students would truly be making the nearly half-hour walk to school on their own.
He emphasized that nothing has been confirmed yet, and the village is still figuring out what to do.
In a similar vein of street safety, trustees approved road repaving for six village streets, with work set to start on Sept. 15.
The included sections of road include Iris Avenue between Carnation Avenue and Clarence Avenue, Lowell Avenue between Emerson Avenue and Barwick Avenue, Cunningham Avenue, Florence Street, Remsen Lane and Rogers Place.
Fitzgerald said these roads were chosen both because they are in “bad condition” and because ConEd dug up portions of them to complete utility work. ConEd is only liable for restoring the specific section of the road they dug up, which Fitzgerald said previously resulted in village roads being half repaved with the other half crumbling.
To prevent this, the village now requests that ConEd simply provide them with the funds the company would have used to repave the portion of the street they dug up, so the village can cover the difference of hiring someone to repave the whole road.
The total cost of the repavement is $614,694, and the work is expected to be completed around Oct. 15.
The village also granted Parminder Kataria a special-use permit to open a grab-and-go cafe at 22 South Tyson Ave., an empty storefront.
“It’s a small storefront. [Kataria] wants to build it out like a small cafe for teas and coffees, mostly for people on the go,” Fitzgerald said. “It’s a very heavily trafficked block, with people walking to the train.”
The village’s next board meeting is set for Tuesday, Sept. 16. Then, there will be a hearing on a proposed local law that would allow senior citizen housing to be built in the village’s commercial districts.
