Construction could begin as soon as the end of this week on the crosswalk connecting Palo Alto High School to Town and Country Village, according to Sam Peiris, a traffic engineer for the City of Palo Alto.
The construction will span from the Town and Country crosswalk to the Embarcadero Road entrance of the Paly parking lot in an effort to improve the flow of traffic around the entrances of both Paly and Town and Country. During most of the construction students will not be able to cross the street to Town and Country at the Embarcadero Road crosswalk, according to Peiris.
Part of the construction includes two new traffic signals that will be outfitted at the Town and Country crosswalk and at the entrance to the Paly parking lot, paid for by the city at a total cost of $250,000. The new traffic light at the entrance of the parking lot will allow cars to make a left turn coming out of Paly, according to Peiris.
“Right now there is no access to turn left coming out of school,” Peiris said. “You will have that when construction is done.”
In addition, the triangle divide that currently separates the entrance of the parking lot from the entrance of Town and Country will be removed to create an intersection that will allow cars to move freely from either location.
Construction on the parking lot will begin as early as Nov. 5, but will only be closed off for a few days at a time.
“If you look at the overall project from the beginning to the end, the project will go for almost six to eight weeks,” Peiris said. “On and off it [the entrance to the parking lot] will be closed for two to three days.”
The major project affecting students, the construction on the Town and Country crosswalk, includes replacing the old traffic light with a new one that will have additional signal faces and a different signal sequence, according to Peiris.
Construction will take up to three to four weeks, according to Peiris. A fence separating Paly from Embarcadero Road is likely to be in place by Monday.
“When they start [construction] nobody is going to [be able to] cross from school to Town and Country,” Peiris said.
During construction students will have to walk to the El Camino Real crosswalk in order to reach Town and Country, according to Assistant Principal Jerry Berkson.
“If they’re smart, [students] will use the El Camino crosswalk,” Berkson said. “We have traffic lights for a reason.”
In addition, students who use the underpass next to the crosswalk will have to go over the bridge to get to Paly because the walkway will be inaccessible due to construction, according to Peiris.
Students have expressed frustration with the changes to the crosswalk.
“It’s ridiculous,” freshman John Harvey said. “It’s going to take me five minutes to walk all the way to the [El Camino Real] crosswalk…and lunch already isn’t long enough.”
“I think [construction] is a bad idea,” junior Amelia Bell said. “I think students are going to try to cross the street illegally, and that’s going to be a problem because someone might get hit by a car.”
Berkson said that the administration will pay attention to students’ behavior, but that it has not made any significant steps to enforce the new rules.
“We will monitor [the crosswalk], but I don’t think that we will put a traffic guard out,” Berkson said.
Despite the possibility of negative feedback from students, Berkson feels that students have to understand why these rules are being implemented.
“Students have to use a little bit of common sense,” Berkson said. “As much as they think we’re nuts for making rules, it’s usually for their own safety.”