DRAPER — The intersection of 1300 East and Highland Drive had everything needed to provide safe passage across an increasingly busy road. It had the flashing lights, the 20 mph school zone and the crossing guard. The intersection lacked only one thing: children.

Instead, the children had found another way to walk home from Oak Hollow Elementary. They scrambled through an empty lot, past a water retention basin, and across Highland Drive about six blocks west of the monitored crosswalk. After that, they hopped over a set of unused railroad tracks, took a quick jog along the South Mountain trail, and would finally arrive home after cutting through some back yards.

"It's a pretty short route, so you can see why they would take it," Oak Hollow principal Denis Lyons said. "They're a little bit like water. They like to take the path of least resistance."

That minimal resistance will soon change, however. From the beginning of the school year, Lyons has been concerned about the safety of the shortcut, especially across the increasingly busy Highland Drive. He has sent fliers home about the shortcut and has talked to some of the eight children's parents.

"It makes me nervous whenever we have kids walking these distances," he said. "I have a hard time saying it's OK if it's not safe."

Oak Hollow opened three years ago and originally had a number of students who lived along 1300 East. After last year, the Jordan School District significantly adjusted the boundaries, primarily to adapt to fast-paced growth of the South Mountain area. After the boundary change, Lyons said, he only had the eight students from 1300 East, and all of them either rode the bus or followed the shortcut between school and home. Nobody went to the 1300 East and Highland Drive crossing.

Because of concerns about busing qualifications, school and city officials did not want to immediately move the crossing guard to a new crosswalk. Some parents, Lyons said, worried that if the children had a much shorter route officially recognized, they would not qualify for a bus. After verifying that the busing qualifications were determined by the shortest driving route, Lyons removed the lonely crossing guard.

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By the end of the summer, Draper plans to build a fence along the east side of Highland Drive, which would then funnel the children to a crosswalk the city will open at Town Center Drive and Highland Drive, City Manager Jim Smith said.

Without a crosswalk, city officials fear that the worst could happen. Although the posted speed limit along Highland Drive is 40 mph, drivers have no stop signs or traffic lights between 1300 East and the 1-15 14400 South exit. Smith and Lyons suspect that cars often drive much faster than the speed limit.

"They should not cross there" without a crosswalk, Smith said. "But kids won't do that, of course. They take the shortcut."


E-MAIL: jloftin@desnews.com

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