Mayor Calls for Quick Action at Crosswalk : Accidents: Bradley wants safety measures to be taken at Sepulveda intersection within three weeks. Four students have been hurt this school year.

Mayor Tom Bradley sent a pointed memo to city transportation officials Thursday ordering swift safety improvements at a crosswalk in front of Sepulveda Junior High School where four students have been hit by cars this school year.

“I want your department to immediately review the situation at Sepulveda Junior High School,” the memo said. “No more delays or excuses will be allowed. I would hope that this matter would be corrected within the next two or three weeks.”

Parents and teachers have tried for more than a decade to get a traffic light installed at the crosswalk.

The most recent pedestrian accident was Tuesday, when a 12-year-old boy suffered a broken leg and badly bruised arm.

Last fall, before the recent spate of accidents, the city Department of Transportation studied the intersection and decided that a signal was not warranted.

Bradley’s memo did not recommend specific steps to improve safety.

Also Thursday, transportation officials clarified the department’s policy on determining the need for traffic signals at intersections.

A traffic management official said the department does not require that three pedestrian accidents occur in a crosswalk within a calendar year before a signal will be added.

“Yes, there is a number that if you have three accidents, a flag goes up,” said Zaki Mustafa, another city engineer. “But it is just one of many considerations. It doesn’t have to be three people getting hurt for us to justify putting up a traffic signal.”

Mustafa said that a review of the intersection would begin “right away.”

Police have also responded, stationing two motorcycle officers near the intersection of Plummer Street and Columbus Avenue while students arrive.

School administrators said the officers wrote five speeding tickets, but police could not confirm that.

“After the collision, what we’ve done is target that area,” Sgt. Dennis Zine said. “Very few people comply with the 25-m.p.h. speed limit in school areas. If they’re going 30 m.p.h. in a 25-m.p.h. zone, they can expect a citation. There will be no tolerance.”

Over the past few years, the school has also requested crossing guards for Plummer, which police describe as “a racetrack.” The Transportation Department replied that it provides such service to elementary schools only.

Bradley also criticized that practice.

“Just because a student moves on to junior high doesn’t mean that we should stop providing the necessary protection,” his memo said.

“These are our babies getting hurt,” said Catherine McCoy, president of the school’s Parent-Teacher-Student Assn. “I’m happy that someone has realized there is a problem. I was hoping that it would have been sooner.”

The city declined to install a traffic signal last fall because its records showed that only one pedestrian accident had occurred at the crosswalk in the five years prior to the 1990-91 school year, Al Albaisa, a transportation engineer, said Wednesday.

But school administrators argue that there have been more accidents.

The mayor’s response was especially good news to Caprice Young, an administrative analyst for the Los Angeles County Transportation Commission.

Twelve years ago, when she was an eighth-grader at Sepulveda Junior High, Young headed an unsuccessful student effort to get a traffic light.

“We talked to city councilmen and the traffic engineers,” Young said. “This went on for two years. The bureaucrats need to know what their priorities should be besides just what the book says you’re supposed to do. I am a bureaucrat now, so I know how it is.”