Sun Valley Traffic Jam : School’s ‘Rush Hour’ Irks Parents

Heavy after-school traffic congestion steered parents from Vinedale Elementary School in Sun Valley to a committee of the Los Angeles Board of Education Thursday .

But the board’s Building Committee decided to delay action on the Vinedale issue, after assuring community leaders that the district will solve the traffic-congestion problem.

Most afternoons, the intersection near La Tuna Canyon Road and Vinedale Street is choked with cars and kids. The tiny school has no off-street area where parents could park and pick up their children.

So parents’ cars are double-parked along the narrow, winding La Tuna Canyon Road on most afternoons. Or parents wait in a makeshift dirt-and-gravel parking lot next to the campus.

It’s ‘The Pits’

“Around 2:30 p.m., the area around the school is the pits,” said Anita Czerepak, president of the Vinedale PTA.

“We’re just lucky that none of the kids has been hurt dodging between cars or running across the road,” added Ana Ramos, chairwoman of the school’s Advisory Council.

The parents’ solution: since the school district owns the land on which the makeshift lot sits, turn it into a paved parking lot with entrance and exit driveways and build a five-foot-wide sidewalk leading to the Vinedale campus.

Members of the board’s building committee agreed that the traffic congestion is hazardous. They agreed that the district-owned land could be used to solve the problem. But the three building-committee members did not agree with the parents’ plan and asked that district engineers develop a new proposal.

“Solving a hazardous problem is critical,” said board member Jackie Goldberg, a member of the building committee. “My problem is that this plan doesn’t do it.”

Committee members talked about designing a two-lane entryway to the school similar to those in front of many hotels.

No Sidewalks

“There are no sidewalks along La Tuna Canyon Road, so we can’t let our children walk,” said Czerepak. “On some days it takes a half-hour of waiting to get out of the area.”

There is not much of a morning parking problem, since parents drop off their children and do not have to wait.

The committee members were sympathetic and promised to find money to solve the congestion problem. District engineers promised to have designs ready in a few weeks. Board member Roberta Weintraub, building committee chair, said a student pickup area could be ready as early as next school year. Her San Fernando Valley district includes Sun Valley.