The in basket: Bruce Reed wrote in November to say, “We have been in contact with the school and county officials to get a street light placed at the crosswalk at John Carlson Road and Berkeley Place at the corner of Esquire Hills Elementary School.
“Since fall began were reminded of how dark it is in the morning when the kids are headed to school or on the nights the school has planned activities.
“There are two other crosswalks by the school and they both have street lights, however, this particular crosswalk is dangerous, especially with the sharp (blind) corner just before the crosswalk. My wife and I have attempted to cross the street at night using that crosswalk and, not to our surprise, have we yet (to have) a vehicle stop at the crosswalk for us.
“This crosswalk is pitch black at night and in the early morning and it is next to impossible for a car’s driver to see pedestrians. Now with the increasing amount of children walking to school, we have become concerned about the safety of the students, staff and parents.”
Bruce also described a scary situation in which residents were trying to help the victim of a crash at the intersection in 2010, at night.
“The driver of the car was frantically crying and in pain and was not able to get out of the car. She was a sitting duck in the middle of the road with no headlights as were the good Samaritan’s that were there trying to calm her down and help. We were trying to signal cars with an umbrella but they really could not see us until the last minute.
“I understand that the county has procedure they follow when putting up street lights,” Bruce said, “and they told us it could take a year or more to get a light at this crosswalk. What I don’t understand is why the county can’t put safety first and make this a priority rather than a possible statistic.”
The out basket: Help is on the way, said Doug Bear of Kitsap County Public Works last month.
“We are proceeding with installing a street light there,” he said. “Street lights are installed by Puget Sound Energy. I don’t have any estimate of when that work is scheduled by them. As you reader indicated it does take time to work through the process from the request to the actual installation.”
Before the start of school next fall would be a good target, I’d say.
