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WEST JORDAN — When Heather Childs heads to her post as a crossing guard each morning, her goal is to make sure every boy or girl walking to Hawthorn Academy and Westvale Elementary navigate the busy intersection of 9000 South and 2200 West as safely as possible.
This week, her job was made a little easier with the help of first-of-its-kind technology implemented to allow more time for kids to move across heavily traveled streets near their schools.
The Utah Department of Transportation Wednesday officially unveiled a new technology that lets school crossing guards add extra “walk” time to a crosswalk signal during peak commuting periods, increasing safety for students getting across busy streets. Using a specially engineered key designed specifically for signal boxes, crossing guards can increase the amount of time pedestrians have to cross the street by 10 seconds to 15 seconds during morning and afternoon hours when students walk and bike to school.
“It gives us an extra 15 seconds so that the little legs of the children have plenty of time so they can cross the street safely and we can get back onto the corner to help other kids in the opposite direction,” Childs said.
“When you have 50 kids crossing this busy intersection at one time, a 30-second light is very hard for the kids to get across and for us to get back. That extra 15 seconds doesn’t seem like much, but it’s a huge difference.”
Sometimes, she said, kids drop things and worry about trying to recover their belongings while standing in the middle of the crosswalk. The extra time technology helps alleviate that issue.
UDOT’s Traffic Operations Center is the first in the nation to develop the technology, said Cherissa Olson, the department's school and pedestrian safety program manager. Installing the key costs about $20 per crosswalk, plus 30 minutes of installation time for an electrician.
“This is a low-cost, easy solution that will pay off with increased safety and better traffic flow for the area,” she said. “We want to make sure students are getting to and from school every day safe and sound.”
Increased congestion near the schools made the new technology installation necessary, said Cindy Jacobsen, crossing guard supervisor for West Jordan.
“With all of the traffic in this area, something had to be done to help our students get to and from school safely,” she said. “This new tool from UDOT gives us a solution that will make our jobs easier.”
Cities can request the technology, and UDOT is also analyzing traffic data to determine what intersections throughout the state could benefit from the new enhancement, Olson explained. Besides West Jordan, the technology is currently being used at five other intersections, including in Farmington, Huntington, La Verkin, Logan and Salt Lake City, with two more planned for Provo and Salt Lake City, she said.
For parents, the new safety measure alleviates some of the anxiety of sending their children to school across such heavy-traffic intersections.
“When I first heard about it, I wondered why no one had thought of it earlier,” said Jenni Farmer, whose 10-year old daughter is a fifth-grader at Westvale Elementary.
“It makes me feel a lot safer for my child not having to run across the street when it’s superbusy and there is a ton of traffic. You just never know about the drivers out there.”
