Child’s Death Revives Parkway Speed Fears : Traffic: Vehicles that travel 55 m.p.h. on Crown Valley Parkway are a growing danger to the area, neighbors contend. City and county officials agree.

The death of a 3-year-old boy who was killed as he walked across the busy Crown Valley Parkway with his baby-sitter has reignited community concern over the speed limit on Laguna Niguel’s main thoroughfare.

Both city and county officials said Friday that there was an urgent need to review the 55-m.p.h. speed limit along sections of the six-lane parkway.

The officials’ concern came after Thomas Burge was killed and his baby-sitter was seriously injured as they crossed Crown Valley Parkway at Nueva Vista Drive on their way home from the child’s preschool.

Laguna Niguel Police Chief Joe Davis said that the driver, Kathi Stoy, 23, of El Toro was not speeding when her vehicle struck the pedestrians. She told investigators that she was unable to avoid the accident because the pair stepped into the path of her car, authorities said.

Police could not determine whether the two were in a crosswalk when they were struck.

The accident revived memories of when residents of this largely bedroom community protested the speed limit with placards that said “The Crown Valley Freeway,” and successfully lobbied county officials for more traffic signals and other safety measures.

“This was not a case of speeding, but that does not say we don’t need to look at the speed limit along Crown Valley Parkway,” said Mark Goodman, an aide to Supervisor Thomas F. Riley and chairman of the city’s traffic and transportation commission.

The California Highway Patrol, which patrolled the road until last July, said the accident record did not show an unusual number of speed-related incidents when compared to similar roads in South County.

“At one time the drivers did fly down there,” said CHP Officer Ken Daily. “But as more traffic lights were installed, people slowed down.”

Some residents, however, said the accident record did not accurately reflect the daily bustle on the road.

“It is not the safety of the motorist in relation to their speed that I question,” said Dennis Miller, a neighbor of the Burges. “It is their reaction time at 55 m.p.h. to a child in the street even if he or she shouldn’t be there.”

Miller, who wrote to Riley to protest the 55-m.p.h. speed limit in July, 1987, on Friday dispatched another letter to the supervisor.

“There comes a time when the rights of the motorists interfere with the rights of the children who are forced to use the same area of the highway,” Miller said.

“What we have is a freeway running through the middle of a residential area,” Miller said, noting that the road abuts two elementary schools.

To prevent children from having to cross Crown Valley Parkway, the Capistrano Valley Unified School District buses all students who live on the opposite side. “We wouldn’t have kids crossing Crown Valley Parkway,” said Jacqui Serra, a spokeswoman for the district.

Crown Valley Parkway is a major arterial highway, bisecting the city as it runs from Coast Highway north into Mission Viejo. As the community has expanded, the thoroughfare has become increasingly lined with hundreds of tract homes and large commercial centers.

Laguna Niguel Mayor Patricia C. Bates launched her political career in the early 1980s as a founder of Laguna Niguel Residents for a Safer Crown Valley, a community group dedicated to reducing the parkway’s speed.

Bates called the accident “a horrible tragedy,” and said city officials are conducting a survey to determine safer speed limits.

Noting that the last speed surveys were conducted more than five years ago, Bates said the city would have the results of the new survey by the end of October. The city has the right to recommend changes in speed limits, but the county would have to make the final determination, since the parkway is a county road.

Miller said the neighborhood was “shocked and very upset” by the child’s death.

The baby-sitter, Gladys Ventura, 29, was listed in stable condition Friday in the intensive care unit of Mission Hospital Regional Medical Center in Mission Viejo.

A hospital spokeswoman said Ventura suffered two fractured legs, a dislocated right arm and a fractured pelvis.

Stoy was not cited. An investigation is continuing.