People in southeast Wichita are asking the city council to take steps to ease traffic and safety problems in an area near Southeast High School.
Kristi Holliday and Amy Lyon appeared at Tuesday’s city council meeting to talk about concerns for car and pedestrian traffic in the area of Pawnee and 127th Street East. Holliday said in the two years since the new Southeast High School opened, traffic has increased and there are no signal lights or school zones. She said traffic has been going into the Casa Bella housing addition to avoid a four-way stop at Pawnee and 127th, with school buses and city buses also moving through the community, and construction activity at Pawnee and Greenwich has also added to the traffic problems in the neighborhood.
Holliday also said there are no sidewalks or crosswalks or pathways for students who are walking to and from schools in the area. She said kids are having to walk in the ditches or along the roadway, creating a very dangerous situation.
Lyon said the situation with buses moving through the neighborhood has created a “horrifying” situation with young children walking in the streets.
City council member Becky Tuttle said she has been meeting with public works staff to talk about solutions, and there will be discussions with transit officials and Southeast High School. Tuttle said there is money in the city’s capital improvement program for walking and biking pathways, and that will be part of the discussion as well.
(photo: Google Earth)