Stamford's Rogers School Traffic Issues Looking Up for 2012-13

Parents and city officials are breathing a sigh of relief this year now that construction was completed over the summer and alleviated the traffic nightmare had been facing the previous year.

"Construction went amazingly well and it got completed in time for the opening of school," said Al Barbarotta, Director of Facilities for the Board of Education. "We're still in observation mode, but the seem to be working much better than the situation in the past."

Last year, into and out of the school. Those issues presented very real safety hazards during dismissal and caught the attention of city officials for good reason.

Rogers single entry point, a simple two-lane road, was clogging every day with buses and pushy parents trying to pick up children. Both lanes, one designated for entering traffic, the other for departing, were both filling with vehicles jockeying for position closest to the school. Traffic trying to enter the school was backing traffic all the way up Blachley Road to Main Street.

An incident like a fire would have presented a real danger and a legitimate logistical nightmare if it had occurred during school letting out. One official said, "it scares me to death."

Over the summer, the city worked to alleviate these issues. And on Wednesday, it was evident enormous progress had been made.

"The traffic situation on our property is working well at this point," Barbarotta said. "It's working better than we previously were. We haven't completely solved the traffic problem along Blachley with traffic for Chelsea Piers CT (CPCT and NBC  and we'll be looking at additional solutions."

There didn't seem to be any evident issues Wednesday, however. In act, with a crossing guard and CPCT security helping to orchestrate the show, there was little issue at all. CPCT security explained it was the first week the school hadn't needed a police officer at the scene to help.

One lane down Blachley Ave., the entire stretch of the left lane beginning at E. Main St. specifically, is dedicated exclusively to making the left turn into Rogers. That frees up oncoming traffic to move smoothly into the Chelsea Piers CT complex at the end of the road without parents who had been sitting in the shoulder of the road waiting their turn to enter the school cutting across the front of traffic.

The entrance has been widened to include one additional lane. Parents have smoothly transitioned into allowing buses the right lane, using the left entry lane to move into position to pick up their children and keeping the exit lane free. The lane has been widened across the entirety of the school's property to give parents more movement room and travels around to a loop at the back of the school where it becomes the exit lane.

"The stacking is working much better, people getting used additional space we have and are utilizing it," Barbarotta said. "We basically have an agreement [with Chelsea Piers to use the access gate off Cove Road] if the school ever needs to [open the back of the school up.] We can use it for walking students or vehicle access as long as we discuss it with them. But it really isn't an issue at this point for the school. We've solved our problems over summer or came close to it. We'll just continue to monitor the traffic issues."