School Corner Reconstruction a Good Thing at a Bad Time

Sometimes good things come with a price.

Students, parents, teachers and staff at Jefferson Elementary School were more than a little miffed when, on the first day of school last week, contractors showed up and began demolishing the key corner crossings around the school.

There was heavy equipment, noise and dust, and worse, it meant everyone, including very small children, had to walk around barricades and into the streets to get to and from school.

One Jefferson teacher called it "idiotic" to schedule such critical work so close to the school at such a time "when they had all summer to do it."

The scene was the same at Wilson Elementary School and St. Jude's. The most important crossing corners were being torn up and rebuilt at seemingly the worst possible time.

At Wilson, though, staff were much more understanding and called it only "an unfortunate inconveniece."

They had gotten the memo that apparently Jefferson had not.

The work being done was the result of a grant the city had applied for and received to greatly improve safety and access to the school – a good thing, they said. But the grant had come through only in August, and there was not time to schedule and complete the work before school opened.

City engineer Bill Wehrley confirmed that.

"It's a short-term disruption for a long-term benefit," he said. "We truly appreciate everyone's patience and understanding while we get this done."

The rebuilding of the corner crossings will bring them up to modern requirements for safety and disability access, Wehrley said.

"Some of the ramps at those corners were put in 20 years ago," Wehrley said. "On some of them, there was only one ramp instead of two."

The grant, totaling about $300,000, is through the Wisconsin Department of Transportation's Safe Routes to School program to "improve access for all kids to get to school," Wehrley said – the same grant program that earlier paid for radar speed signs on Glenview Avenue and elsewhere.

"Because it's a state grant we had to follow the state's guidelines," he said. "That's taken a long time, and all the approvals came in August. The bid contractor was still about two weeks away from finishing some work on the North Shore, so there was no way we could finish in time for the start of school.

"Unfortunately, it just coincided. That's the price we pay for free money."