Way Too Young to Drive but Taking On Traffic

On North Flower Street in Santa Ana--the high-rent part of the street--the city has long used “no turn” signs to cut down on outside traffic flow.

Residents don’t have that kind of pull at City Hall along low-income South Flower Street; traffic there just whizzes by.

I could understand school crossing guard Pearl Swann’s frustrations there when she told me: “Sometimes all you can do is hold up your [stop] sign and pray you don’t get hit.”

But there’s a new lobbying group that’s trying to get something done about a dangerous intersection at Flower and Highland streets. And its members have mightily impressed the city.

They’re fourth- and fifth-grade students at Pio Pico Elementary School, a block away from the intersection on Highland Street. They are part of a research team set up in a partnership between the school and Chapman University’s department of education. Chapman professor Suzanne SooHoo is part of a team of teachers and community leaders working with the students on projects to help the area.

The students toured the neighborhood with their notebooks to ask residents what kind of problems they might tackle.

“A few of the neighbors just wanted us out of their way, but most of them were pretty nice,” said Liliana Villa, 11, one of the project leaders.

Most problems mentioned related to the area’s heavy population. The school’s community was touted by officials as the second most dense square mile in the country when President Clinton visited two years ago.

It’s the only place around where you’ll find two elementary schools right next to each other. Pio Pico on Highland was built five years ago because Lowell Elementary next door on Flower couldn’t handle all the community’s children. Together, they have close to 2,000 students and have to hold year-round school to handle them all.

After several weeks of canvassing the neighbors, the students decided to concentrate on the Flower-Highland intersection. Just a look at the intersection will tell you why.

Highland is a crooked street, taking a slight jag--barely a car length--at Flower. So you’ve got cars turning right onto Flower only to take an immediate left across incoming traffic.

The students counted traffic in 10-minute segments and found more than 200 vehicles coming through each time. They took pictures and observed speeders and interviewed the crossing guards. They presented their findings a few weeks ago to city officials and later the neighborhood community association.

Zed Kekula, the assistant city traffic engineer who heard them, told me that he found the youngsters inspiring.

“They had really done their homework,” he said. “There was no question we should take them seriously.”

So now Kekula is busy with his own study of the intersection. He’s also set up another meeting with the students for Aug. 20.

“I told them not to expect results overnight,” he said. “We have a lot of problems to address in this city. But it seems clear something needs to be done at that intersection.”

One of the student recommendations was for a flashing light at the intersection, to slow down traffic. Another that both Kekula and I thought had promise: painting a picture of a police car on the side of the J & N liquor store/market on the northeast corner of the intersection. Motorists will know it’s not real. But the students and their resource teachers are convinced that just the sight of that painted car will slow people down.

“We’ve found that when the police are there, the traffic is much easier to control,” said Emily Wolks, one of the resource teachers.

The store’s operator, who identified himself as “Greg,” said he wasn’t opposed to painting a police car on the side but that it would be up to the building’s owner.

I took my own survey at the intersection on Friday at midafternoon. Though it wasn’t close to rush hour, I counted more than 150 cars total going both directions on Flower in one 10-minute segment, and about 125 in another 10-minute period.

For both tests total, I’d estimate maybe just three vehicles in all stayed within the 30 mph speed limit--and one of them was a county bus. Most drivers were barreling through at well past 40 mph, some over 50.

Juana Cosillos, a crossing guard assigned to that intersection, predicts it’s just a matter of time before there is a serious pedestrian injury.

She’s got quite a job on her hands. She has to handle students from the two elementary schools as well as the Santa Ana Boys & Girls Club on Highland. And she has to do it for two crossings at once, Highland on the west side and then again crossing Flower.

“Even when the police are here, some drivers try to get past me,” she said.

One of my thoughts to help was to repaint the school’s yellow crosswalk on the street pavement; it has badly deteriorated. But Kekula points out that the crosswalks are repainted every year. Problem is, new paint that meets environmental concerns wears out easily with the heavy traffic.

Whatever is done in the end, Kekula credits the students with getting it all started.

Eleanor Rodriguez, the principal at Lowell, applauds them too.

“The Lowell-Pico Neighborhood Assn. has talked to the police for some time about the traffic,” she said. “I hope this helps get the city’s attention.”

Wolks of Pio Pico is convinced this is just the first of many projects that will come from the school’s partnership with Chapman University: “We want the students to feel like they have the power to make something happen in their community.”

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Jerry Hicks’ column appears Tuesday, Thursday and Saturday. Readers may reach Hicks by calling the Times Orange County Edition at (714) 966-7823 or by fax to (714) 966-7711, or e-mail to jerry.hicks@latimes.com.