Traffic danger at Wheeler Avenue

Parent-generated traffic surrounding Wheeler Avenue Elementary School now has the attention of the District 13 Board of Education and village and county officials after a concerned parent raised the issue at the Board of Education meeting on June 17.

Tara Casucci, corresponding secretary of the Wheeler Avenue PTA, said that traffic congestion created by parents who double-park endangers students’ safety at the beginning and end of each day at Wheeler.

Casucci said that parents often double-park along the southbound lanes of Rockaway Parkway, blocking other parents from pulling out and forcing people in cars behind them to swerve into the next lane. Some parents call kids on the sidewalk, who walk in front of parked vehicles to their double-parked cars. Casucci added that parents also make U-turns in the morning and afternoon, which is prohibited.

The crossing guard, she said, not only has to get students across the street safely, but now has to deal with the double-parked parents.

“When I’m there, the crossing guard does a fantastic job keeping our kids safe,” Casucci said. “She’s having a great issue not with the buses, but with the parents.”

Julie Hammel, a crossing guard at the intersection of Wheeler Avenue and Rockaway Parkway, said that the traffic around the school has been a big deal this year, and makes her job unsafe.

“[Parents] call the kids in the middle of the street between school buses,” she said. “I get distracted from doing what I’m supposed to be doing.”

Hammel added that there are many things in the area that need fixing, specifically traffic signs, because there are parents who do not follow the rules of the road.

A father who waits outside for his son said that the traffic on Rockaway has been a major concern for him this year when he picks up his child. “It seems to be unsafe for the people that are crossing the streets, especially the children,” he said.