Residents near Carson City middle school cite traffic, safety concerns at meeting

Residents expressed concerns about a proper ingress and egress for traffic flow around Eagle Valley Middle School and questioned the impacts of potential growth in student population at the Carson City School District’s community meeting Thursday.

District administrators provided a presentation with project consultants and city officials to address the surrounding construction and traffic issues related to the middle school’s expansion project. The project will be adding 10 classrooms, STEM labs, office and workrooms, courtyard area and facility space to the campus.

The build, however, is drawing attention in the form of traffic needs from local residents impacted along the East Fifth and Hells Bell corridor and the immediate neighborhoods.

Mark Korinek, director of operations, said to date, he is pleased with progress on the project and the direction to alleviate any bottlenecking occurring at pickup and dropoff points.

“We’ve had some issues with our traffic, but we came up with a great solution,” he said. “We’re adding a new dropoff lane, cutting in half the wait time to be out of this complex. We’re doing what we should to help this community.”

During Thursday’s meeting, several residents made comments about students walking home after school damaging mailboxes or throwing rocks at their homes or windows, noting they’re uncertain whether to call local law enforcement or the school district to mitigate the behavior.

Others, however, said they were interested in the district’s and city’s efforts to ensure safety during peak hours when traffic is the heaviest with the proposed turns from Fifth Street onto Carson River Road into the school, the proposed access road and the one-way direct route left onto Fifth again.

Bill and Julie Mobley, who reside on Buzzys Ranch Road behind the school and formerly taught in the school district, said they like to stay informed on what happens with Eagle Valley with their property adjoined to the school. They raised two children in the area and have seen the middle school and the city as a whole grow, so they expressed they were accustomed to the gradual impacts of speeding and the population growth.

“We have no trouble over the fence, never had any problem with the kids,” Julie Mobley said. “The only time we get increased traffic is if they have a nighttime program.”

The couple said they didn’t see how traffic would be impacted much with the district’s proposal on the turns and movement. Though expressing skepticism of its early plans, Bill Mobley said current plans appear to be smoother, and overall both generally were satisfied with the presentation itself.

“Nobody’s really complained about the building, and this was a meeting about the building and we ended up talking about the traffic, which was an issue no matter what,” Julie Mobley said.

The presentation included district administrators Superintendent Richard Stokes, Van Woert Bigotti principals Brad Van Woert and Angela Bigotti, traffic engineering consultant Mark Rotter of Manhard Consulting, CORE Construction staff members Jason Stevens and Ron Triglia and Carson City traffic engineer Chris Martinovich, among others providing their expertise on the expansion project.

Administrators also were asked about the district’s plans to manage transportation, and Stokes said in part that has to do with a school’s enrollment figures. As one of Carson City’s two middle schools, Eagle Valley’s current enrollment is 826. According to the district, as the enrollment approaches 1,000, it would then start to consider building another campus to accommodate growth in the city. Stokes added that at Eagle Valley, the campus should serve no more than 950 in part for traffic needs when asked about transportation.

The district’s policy is to provide busing for families living outside a 2-mile radius of a campus. Any family inside of it is expected to have their children walk to school or to drive them, which increases vehicular traffic in Eagle Valley’s case.

At this time, the city isn’t quite there yet, officials said.

Stokes told the crowd of parents and retired district staff members that the school district is preparing to go before the city’s planning commission in about a week to describe the project in detail. The district has spent about a year planning, designing and preparing for this expansion.

Stokes said he empathizes with families and residents of the area and said the district seeks to be a part of the solution to make it easier for everyone.

“We’ve got to find a way to change ingress and egress for this subdivision in a better way,” Stokes said. “I had four kids go through this school. I was one of those parents bringing them here. This school will continue to grow. This is a critical point.”

As the meeting ended, Stokes added it was obvious traffic would be an issue but said he and the administration hoped to begin its work on construction soon.

“If we’re going to mirror the kind of programs we already have at Carson Middle School, we need that square footage,” he said. “We’ve got to add onto this site if we’re going to have an equitable number of students at both sites.”