Fort Worth

Neighbors Near High School Fed Up With Parking, Speeding

Neighbors in one Fort Worth community are asking for help to deal with students who are spilling over to park on their streets from nearby Carter Riverside High School.

They say the kids are speeding up and down their neighborhood roads and they’ve had enough of the nuisance.

Standing at the corner of Gwynne Street and Primrose Drive in Northeast Fort Worth can give you whiplash, in a hurry.

“And they go so fast that you can’t even get their license plate. If you tell them to slow down, they scream obscenities at us, they throw trash out, they’ve ended up in our yards,” said neighbor Dana Lang.

“This is where he kind of got stuck,” said another neighbor, Naomi Dillard, pointing out tire ruts in a photo showing where two kids spun out in a yard while racing each other last year.

“A 90-year-old woman was almost hit the other day while she was crossing,” said Dillard.

Now neighbors are worried about a new proposal for the city of Fort Worth to reduce the number of parking spaces required at newly-built or remodeled schools.

Some neighbors think that could just drive more kids onto neighborhood roads.

“Most of the cars like to park on the sides, where my dogs like to play and a lot of them like to speed off,” said neighbor Justice Arista.

Her family’s litter of five pit bull puppies is a brand new addition to protect. They already lost one dog that was hit by a car in front of the house and they never want that again.

“It’s kind of scary, if they see a dog, they might not stop because of how fast they’re going,” said Arista.

But the school district says they can’t do much about that.

“They say 'well, they’re not out on school property,'” said Dillard.

That’s why neighbors want more students permitted to park in designated lots, where school leaders can keep a closer watch.

“We’re trying to do something now before anybody gets hurt,” said Lang.

City leaders stress that the proposal to require fewer parking spots would only apply to newly-built schools, not old ones like Carter Riverside. They say right now Fort Worth has the fourth-highest requirement in the country for parking spaces at new schools and that it’s more than necessary. City council will take up that issue in June.

Meanwhile, city and school leaders are slated to meet with neighbors near Carter Riverside next week to try to find a solution to their concerns.

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