ROANOKE TIMES
Copyright (c) 1996, Roanoke Times
DATE: Tuesday, August 13, 1996 TAG: 9608130092
SECTION: VIRGINIA PAGE: C-1 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: JOEL TURNER STAFF WRITER
PARENTS OF STUDENTS who attend after-school functions at Hidden Valley want a safe way in; area residents don't want the way to be through their walker-friendly streets.
After dances and other nighttime activities at Hidden Valley Junior High School, parents say, it's hazardous to pull out onto Virginia 419.
"It's dangerous trying to get out of there at night with so much traffic," said Thomas Leggette, who has a daughter at the school and is also chairman of the county School Board. "All we want is a safe exit for parents coming to pick up their children."
Hidden Valley School Road, off 419 near Lewis-Gale Hospital, is the only access to the school. Most of the residential streets in the neighborhood are dead ends, and there is a gate across Mount Holland Drive Southwest, which leads to the school.
School officials and parents want to open the gate so Mount Holland Drive can be used as an access to the school - at least at night when no traffic control officer is on duty at Hidden Valley School Road and 419.
But there is one catch.
Hidden Valley Junior is a Roanoke County school, but it is in Roanoke. The school was built in the early 1970s when the community was in the county. The city annexed the territory in 1976, but the county was allowed to keep the school.
City residents near the school don't want their streets used for school traffic.
"It's not safe to open the streets up to more traffic," said Michael Thacker, who lives on Mount Holland.
"The neighborhood has a character of dead-end streets. Our neighborhood is used for walking," he told the county School Board recently. "A lot of elderly people walk on the streets, and people walk their animals."
Thacker has urged City Council to prevent the school from using the streets to get to the school. If Mount Holland is opened, there is no way to prevent teen-age drivers from using it, he said.
Thacker said he realizes the hazard for vehicles entering Virginia 419, but the solution isn't Mount Holland Drive.
Leggette says he understands the city residents' concerns, but the traffic has worsened on 419 in recent years. "Twenty years ago, 419 was not as bad as it is today," he said.
Leggette has signed a Parent-Teacher Association petition backing use of Mount Holland for access.
Superintendent Deanna Gordon says school officials prefer not to use Mount Holland, but they are responsible for the children's safety.
Roanoke City Councilman Nelson Harris has asked City Manager Bob Herbert for information on the city's alternatives and whether it can block residential streets from being used for school traffic.
"I'd like to know what authority we have to prevent this," Harris said.
Herbert said he has created a team of city employees to prepare a position paper on the city's response to the county's proposal.
School officials would like to have a traffic signal at Hidden Valley School Road and 419, but the Virginia Department of Transportation has indicated it's unlikely that a signal will be approved, Gordon said.
Jeff Echols, resident engineer for VDOT, said Monday that the intersection does not meet the requirements for a signal because it does not have the necessary volume of traffic over an eight-hour period.
Most of the traffic to the school is concentrated in two hours in the morning and afternoon, he said.
But the School Board has voted to appeal to the General Assembly members who represent the neighborhood - state Sen. John Edwards and Del. Morgan Griffith - for help in getting a traffic signal.
"Maybe we should try the political route to see if that will help," said Jerry Canada, a board member.
Leggette has also asked for the assistance of Thacker and the city residents in lobbying for a traffic signal. "Anything your neighborhood can do, we would appreciate it."
If the state won't install a traffic signal, the school might have to use a traffic control officer for more events, Leggette said.
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