I shall come straight to the point and express my concern for the safety of the local inhabitants, and most especially the children at Rachel Carson Elementary School. We have a dangerous situation that demands immediate attention.

My family lives in the Swan Ridge neighborhood, directly across from the entry to the new school.

During the entire planning process, we have witnessed a steady stream of difficulties and, in my opinion, some poor decision making. Further I believe that the liaison between the school and the city of Sammamish has been poor, resulting in the potential for a hazardous situation. I have personally expressed this during the entire process many times to both the City and the School District.

Last week we got our first taste of the actual difficulties we are going to experience. It was not a happy situation. It confirmed my worst fears that the design of the ingress and egress to 244th from the school is just plain wrong.

Like many residents in our neighborhood, I have previously written to the City of Sammamish and the District to express our concerns, and many of us have attended open houses and workshops regarding both the extension of 244th Avenue and the new school. We even had a special meeting with Mr. Gurol and Mr. Ireland to discuss our issues, from which we were promised some follow up actions. We have repeatedly expressed concerns about the traffic flow in and out of the new school, and the lack of a plan for dealing with the cars which will be picking up and dropping children, as well as for accommodating daily volunteers and special events.

After the recent open house at the school, I know our concerns are valid. Our entire neighborhood was packed with cars. During a brief period of observation, I saw large SUVs parked without concern, children running across the busy 244th at any and all parts of the school frontage. I also witnessed three instances with hard braking and near accidents — both car-to-people and car-to-car.

The new green school was built with a parking lot which holds about 44 cars. There are 22 teachers and several more staff working at the school, which will largely fill that lot every day. Is the plan to have school visitors park in our neighborhood? Is the plan to have parents pick up their children in our neighborhood at the end of every school day, or have them sit with the engines running in front of our houses until the traffic clears enough for them to dart across the road and pick up their children? We predict the traffic backs-ups on 244th at school start and dismissal times will be terrible. We have repeatedly asked for a plan on how the District and City plan to deal with the entering and exiting issues on 244th and the lack of parking at the new school, and have been ignored.

The entire situation is a death trap waiting to happen.

We would like to suggest the establishment of a similar agreement between Swan Ridge and the District, such as the one that exists for ICS and its neighbors. I would like to suggest that parent volunteers and parents picking up children be directed to park at Inglewood and walk the short distance over to pick up their children. This has been mentioned several times as a “backup plan.” It is totally safe and requires ZERO access to and from 244th. Yet neither the school district nor the City has paid any attention to this set of options.

Today despite the city’s denials, 244th is already an arterial Road. If and when the extension (not an improvement) to 244th opens up, the morning rush hour during school time will be nothing short of chaos. We do not want to see our neighborhood become the site of the death of a child due to thoughtless planning by the District and the City, nor do we want it to become an accessory parking lot. We have many small children living in our neighborhood whose parents bought homes here because the quiet, dead-end streets are safe for their children to play in. The potential daily traffic and car parking will create a major safety hazard for these children not to mention ALL the non-bus-riding children at the school.

I believe that immediate action and school traffic supervisors will be necessary to fix the current problem. The only appropriate long-term solution is to use Inglewood.

Timothy O’Neil-Dunne has lived in unincorporated Sammamish since 1996 and works as a consultant in travel distribution.