A reminder to drivers to keep school zones safe, obey parking signs

It is not a new issue, in fact, Student Transportation Services of Waterloo Region says it is a constant problem around all schools in our Region.

Drivers parking in no parking or no stopping zones, such as bus lanes, or pulling U-Turns in school zones, both affect traffic and risk the safety of school children.

“Parking in those spots will sort of cinch traffic, so it creates narrower passages, people will often jut out of parking spots like that abruptly, because they’re not in good places,” says Leslie Maxwell, School Travel Planner.
“It’s an on-going problem and essentially it’s because schools are built to be walkable, they’re in communities that are close to homes, in order to encourage kids to walk and bike to school as much as possible. Those kids that are outside of the walk zone, we support them with bus transportation. So really, the only traffic that essentially should be around the school, by vehicular traffic, are busses, vehicles of teachers, and the occasional vehicle of a parent who maybe has a student from out of bounds.”

Maxwell adds that what happens when all these parents are dropping children off at school, is that a large amount of traffic is created around the area at one time, because everyone wants to drop their kids off around the same time.

“Schools are not built, our parking lots can’t be built, to encompass that sort of traffic for such a brief moment in time, so we have a lot of cars that are forced to make decisions that they wouldn’t make under normal circumstances.”