Police Chief Calls for Crosswalks for Students Parking at New Canaan High School

Saying students who drive to New Canaan High School need a safer way to walk across the main access road once they’ve parked, New Canaan’s chief of police is calling for the creation of a crosswalk or two that will connect them to the building.

As it is now, according to Police Chief Leon Krolikowski—one of dozens of parents who makes the bumper-to-bumper trek along Farm Road each morning to drop off a student—there’s no defined way for those parking in the track-side lot to get to the school.

“The students all park there and they’re trying to get across the road, and there’s nowhere to cross,” Krolikowski said.

“I know it’s a little bit of work, but why not create a safe area for them to cross? Otherwise, you see four, five, half a dozen kids waiting on the side.”

Asked about the matter, Superintendent of Schools Dr. Bryan Luizzi said the high school is open to any suggestion that bolsters safety. With respect to a crosswalk, he said part of the challenge is that one central location would be across the flagpole island in the main access road loop, but that with curbing along that route, there’s more work than striping needed to create wheelchair access for ADA compliance.

“The other thing that makes the design tricky is if you look at it, you will see the students park all along the row and then they walk down the hill and come across [to the school],” Luizzi said. “To expect them to funnel into one or two spots? That would be something we’d have to teach them how to do. But if it makes things safer, absolutely. We will look at it and see what we can do to make it all work.”

The high school parking lot has been on the radar of police and traffic-calming officials for at least 18 months, when word surfaced that teens were “racing” the speed sentries there to see who could get the highest “score” (or rate of speed).

From about 7 to 7:30 a.m., the high school parking lot is bustling with activity. School and safety officials in neon vests are positioned both at the Farm Road intersection and then, within the campus, on the nearer side of the access road loop.

Passenger cars, many of them SUVs and with the teens at the wheel as well as parents dropping off their kids, travel nonstop in both directions during the half-hour period with no break. Exacerbating the situation is that many of the students parking in the spaces opposite the flagpole island must negotiate a steep, narrow strip of grass that runs from the parking lot down to the accessway itself—a hazard at all times of the year though perhaps most of all in slippery conditions.

Motorists pulling into the lot appear to show a high degree of courtesy to those student seeking to cross the main access road, though those teenage pedestrians (who, oddly and perhaps unexpectedly, seem to cross not only toward school as well as back across, toward the lot, in the morning) still must rely on the courtesy and vigilance of a teenager at 7 a.m.—not a profile for motor vehicle safety—or the often more harrowing prospect of an adult New Canaanite driver at the same time.

Krolikowski said there’s a “real need” for the crosswalk, even considering the cost of installation. One location could be at the flagpole area, with perhaps another deeper into the campus, with signage at both spots. Motorists now already are faced with signs indicating that pedestrians cross the lot.

The call for a sidewalk follows a 14-year-old NCHS student being struck on Farm Road, crossing on foot and midblock against traffic from a car backed up to the stop sign at the high school’s access route.