South Weber Safety Issues

On Tuesday, Nov. 26 at 6 pm, the South Weber City council will decide on amendments to the Easton Village subdivision phase 1 and 2. Allowing the subdivision to continue without a second ingress/egress.  This decision will affect some safety concerns for neighborhoods and children.

A.   Since the only ingress/egress is shared with South Weber Elementary School, there are some safety issues we should consider as residents of South Weber, especially those with children and grandchildren attending South Weber Elementary School.

1.    Approving the amendment allows for only 1 ingress/egress out of Easton Village with 30 new or existing homes.  According to government research the average number of trips/day/household with two cars is 6.  6x 30 (homes) is an additional 180 cars on the one ingress/egress daily.

2.    Add to that 6 school buses per morning and 6 per afternoon, 715 students, some of which walk and additional cars dropping and picking up their children, and all the teachers and support staff who drive.

3.    Add to that the additional traffic generated by the community center that shares the parking lot with the school.

This new ordinance may work for another subdivision, but it is not acceptable when the only ingress/egress is shared with an elementary school and community center.  This is clearly a liability to the city of South Weber and poses a dangerous situation for our children.

B.   There is another safety issue that has recently arisen due to this ingress/egress decision.

Lester St. abruptly ends on the west end at the Jorgensen property approximately four feet off the ground.  To allow school children to walk to the school on safe surface neighborhood roads a ramp was built so they could access Lester St.

With the new 6’ fence that needs to surround Easton Village, the ramp has been removed and now the entire end of Lester St. will be fenced.  This now forces the children walking to school off of safer neighborhood surface roads and onto a busy highway.

Is this something we are comfortable with as a city?