By Kalin Krohe, Panhandle Post
At its Nov. 15 meeting Chadron City Council approved on first reading a speed limit change in public school areas.
The ordinance will change speed limits to 15 MPH around Chadron Public Schools.
"Our school resource officer [Derek Bauer] has been advocating for a number of years for a more consistent approach to speed in the school zones," Chadron City Manager John Sutherland said. "It's a huge child safety concern for the school resources officer. When the traffic piles up at the schools where the parents are dropping their children off it gets a little tied up a bit. The students get anxious and they jump out of the car a block away. And then the other traffic that's backed up; there are parents letting off other kids. It becomes a real hazard as the kids dodge in and out of the traffic. He [Bauer] proposed that the city finally, officially adopt school zones and then we adopt consistent signage so that the law enforcement can actually enforce speed limits and enforce safety precautions."
Sutherland said the city has never had school zones established.
"Apparently some place along the line, over the years, city staff just went to the various school locations and placed signs at places that they thought it was appropriate," Sutherland said. "And as a consequence, the signs are not consistently established. The areas are not consistently established. We never did a really good job of marking the beginning of school zones. We have certainly not done a good job of marking the end of school zones. We haven't been good with making it clear...what hours school speed zones were supposed to be observed. We've introduced legislation now to systematize that whole process."
Sutherland said these changes will improve student safety.
"And hopefully it actually improves travel flow," Sutherland said. "We have good input from the council members because almost all of them have experience with younger children who they do drop off at school. They've seen first hand the scary things that go on. We're going to be a little more thorough in the placement of stop signs so that we can regulate the traffic through the various intersections, hopefully improving access and traffic movement."