Some south Arlington residents are fed up because they say it takes nearly 30 minutes just to get out of their neighborhood every morning because of new traffic backups.
Some residents in South Arlington say it’s taking them upwards of 25 minutes to get out of their neighborhoods in the morning – all because of the traffic a new charter school is bringing to the area.
Now, the city and the school are working to fix things.
When Bob Shelton needs to leave home, South Bowen Road is his only option to get out of his neighborhood. He says trying to turn onto the busy street has become the most frustrating part of his commute.
“It’s a total headache,” said Shelton. “It has taken as long as 25 minutes to get out of my subdivision.”
His neighborhood sits between two charter schools – Arlington Classics Academy and the new International Leadership of Texas – that are within a half-mile of each other along Bowen.
Neither school has buses, so most students have to be dropped off and picked up by their parents.
“They generate about 1,500, 1,600 cars every morning and they all show up within an hour of each other,” said David Wynn, Assistant Director of Public Works and Transportation for the City of Arlington.
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Shelton says most mornings, traffic gets so backed up along Bowen, he and his neighbors get blocked in.
“A lot of traffic fails to obey the [Do Not Block Intersection signs],” said Shelton. “That’s what they’re supposed to do.”
Wynn admits the added traffic from the schools has presented some challenges along Bowen. He says that’s why the city and both schools are working together to help alleviate those problems.
“For one, we’ve staggered the school times to try to help spread that out a little bit so that we don’t have a large peak within a 15 minute period,” said Wynn. “It’s more within an hour period.”
The city has also worked with the schools to reconfigure drop off and pick up lanes, so traffic stays in their parking lots and doesn’t flow out onto Bowen.
Wynn says International Leadership of Texas went so far as to build an additional road near the school, so that neighbors to the north could have easier access to the traffic light at Bowen and Bardin Roads.
The school’s superintendent, Eddie Conger, was at the intersection Monday afternoon timing how quickly traffic moved through the area to see where there might be room for improvements.
Finally, the city has added signs to most of the side streets telling school traffic not to pull into them or block them.
“We’ve asked them to be patient with us and try to find an alternate route,” said Wynn.
While Shelton believes they can do more to fix the problem, he says the city and the schools have been very open and responsive to the complaints.
Wynn says International Leadership of Texas is in the process of reviewing its traffic plan and will submit that to the city later this week.
