Statement From Dr. John Fredericksen

Statement from Dr. John Fredericksen, Superintendent of Schools, on Olney Road/South Division Street Intersection

The Wicomico County Public School System is delighted that the new James M. Bennett High School building will be ready to open in August 2010, a full year ahead of the anticipated occupancy date. However, the state of the intersection at Onley Road and South Division Street continues to be a concern, one that has existed from the start of the project in 2006.

In designing the James M. Bennett High project, the school system planned many improvements to enhance traffic flow, reduce congestion on roads around the school, and improve pedestrian and motorist safety. In 2006, the Board of Education shared with the City of Salisbury its plans to divide staff, student and parent car traffic from the bus traffic. Cars would use the entrance on College Avenue, while buses would travel on Onley Road to reach the bus loop at the back of the school. This is a traffic division we strive to make at all schools because it is safer for our students as well as motorists and bus drivers.

This fit neatly with the stated plans of the county to upgrade its portion of Onley Road, and of the city to improve Onley Road and the intersection with South Division Street. At the time, even before the opening of University Park and the many pedestrian, vehicle and shuttle bus trips it generates each day, it was already clear to city and county officials that the roadway and intersection needed improvements.

Using the city's own 2006 traffic study, which showed that bus traffic from James M. Bennett High School would have a 2 percent impact on the intersection of Onley Road/South Division Street/Bateman Street, the school system paid the city $25,000 to cover its portion of the cost of improving the intersection. As part of the project, the school system also reduced the number of curb cuts it will use on Onley Road from three to two to further reduce the impact on Onley Road.

The county subsequently widened and improved its portion of Onley Road, while improvements at the South Division Street end of Onley Road remain in the discussion stage.

Back in 2006, the Board of Education shared with the city the planned completion date for the project: August 2010. While the funding schedule later caused the school system to revise the anticipated opening date to August 2011, the school system informed the city when it became clear that the project could be finished by the original date. In February, before the school system made any public announcement about the August 2010 opening of the new James M. Bennett High building, the school system informed the city by letter of the scheduled opening date and reminded the city of the continued need for improvements at Onley Road/South Division Street.

The bulk of the intersection's use from Onley Road is residential housing for Salisbury University students, while the South Division Street corridor is a busy one thanks to business and residential development along Milford Street, Dykes Road and other areas served by the two-lane South Division Street. Salisbury University, like the school system, has made a payment to the city to address its share of the impact on the intersection.

During construction, in accordance with the terms of a public works agreement signed with the city, the school system also spent more than $1 million to redesign the access of James M. Bennett High and Bennett Middle on College Avenue, with the goals of limiting access points, improving traffic flow, and boosting safety. These improvements will reduce the number of entrances and exits on College Avenue from five to two (when Bennett Middle has been relocated to its new location in Fruitland). The improvements also aligned the exits with existing streets, and ensured that exits from the school would be made at signalized intersections. At the same time, the school system made drainage improvements south of the construction site to assist the city with ongoing drainage problems on College Avenue.

During a recent meeting, the city voted unanimously to make improvements to the Onley Road/South Division Street/Bateman Street intersection so that the intersection could be safer and more effective for all users. To allow time for the work to be done, the school system is considering temporary options for the first few weeks of the 2010-11 school year. These options could include dropping off and picking up students at the back of the parking lot between the two existing Bennett schools, or routing buses along an unimproved service path from the current staff parking lot to the new bus loop. Both of these options would combine bus and car traffic, and temporarily using the service path for buses would significantly increase the risk of accidents involving our students. The school system is still evaluating its options for handling bus drop-offs and pickups, and could determine that it is best to proceed with the original plan of using Onley Road to access the new bus loop. Making temporary adjustments on school property so that the Onley Road/South Division Street intersection can be upgraded for all users is acceptable only if those adjustments do not present an increased safety risk to our students.

The school system supports the city’s unanimously agreed-on improvements to Onley Road/South Division Street/Bateman Street. These improvements will allow bus traffic as well as other motorists and pedestrians, bicyclists and skateboarders to travel more safely through that intersection. The intersection would have a walk/don't walk signal to allow pedestrians, skateboarders and cyclists a safe time to cross.

There will be 26 buses serving James M. Bennett High, twice a day for about 45 minutes at a time. When the buses leave in the afternoon, 17 of the buses would bear right in a new right turn lane to reach their route. With immediate left turns onto Bateman Street no longer allowed, traffic could flow unimpeded. The nine buses traveling south -- not all of which would be leaving the school at the same time -- would stop at the new Onley Road signal to await the green light.

Recently, questions have been asked about whether there is sufficient funding left in the construction budget for James M. Bennett High School to pay for the intersection improvements. School construction projects in Maryland are funded jointly by the state and county. Money that remains in the project budget following the completion of construction is not surplus funding for the school system’s use, but would revert to the county.

On any major capital project, in keeping with sound financial practices, the school system maintains an acceptable level of contingency reserve until the project has progressed to the point where a certain risk threshold has been achieved. Now that occupancy is a few months away and part of the risk threshold has been achieved, money held in reserve for contingencies might now be available for use on the project. However, the Bennett project will not be complete until Bennett Middle School is constructed at its new site in Fruitland. Only then will the current Bennett Middle School be demolished and the full site available for completion of the high school, including some of its athletic fields. Only at that time will the James M. Bennett High School project be done.

The project was bid not as one giant project but as a large project with many alternates, some of which were initially included in the project and some of which were held for later consideration. The county-appointed School Building Commission, which regularly meets to review and make recommendations on school building projects, has declined to recommend including many additional alternates at this time. Payment for the cost of intersection upgrades off-site – upgrades for which the school system has already paid its portion, as well as more than $1 million for improvements on College Avenue – is not within the scope of the project.

The intersection design approved recently by the city is the least disruptive to traffic flow at the Onley Road/South Division Street/Bateman Street intersection. It is a design that is readily achievable, and one which the school system has already paid its share to support. This design would lift the intersection to a service level B, the highest service level most of the city's intersections achieve. The traffic circle option is not only more costly and time-consuming, it would require the acquisition of additional land from Salisbury University and would not provide a signalized crossing for the many people who cross the intersection on foot, cycle or skateboard.

The need for improvements to the intersection, discussed with the school system for four years and known by the city even earlier, is an issue for today. The community cannot wait five years for the construction of a traffic circle that would cost more and solve some problems while potentially creating new ones. Construction of the city-approved intersection improvements should begin now, to benefit all the users of that intersection.