City Council Puts Crossing Guard in Front of LAHS After Scary Collision

Spurred by the striking of a teen two weeks ago—and with the girl sitting in the audience as they debated—the Los Altos City Council Tuesday night unanimously voted to place a new school crossing guard at the front of .

By 9:30 p.m., City Manager Doug Schmitz had arranged for a school resources officer to serve as interim crossing guard, beginning Wednesday morning, until arrangements could be made for a regular one.

"I'm so happy to be alive," LAHS student Andrea Frates told the council. She said a 1999 Ford Expedition, driven by a parent, had struck her going 30 mph.

"The fact she is sitting here tonight is a miracle," said Vice Principal Cristy Dawson, who described seeing Frates lying in the street that morning. "I don't know that kids are crossing willy-nilly, but there are a lot of kids crossing in that crosswalk."

For a 20-minute period each morning, from 7:50 to 8:10 a.m., the front of Los Altos High becomes a teeming, chaotic mix of students on foot, bicycle and in cars, driven either by students or their parents. The intersection of North Gordon Way and Almond Avenue, where the school is located, is particularly bad, students and teachers said.

"I flew 30 feet and hit the ground," Frates told the council. Her doctors were amazed her hip wasn't broken—or worse, she said. She said the driver, a parent, told her he didn't see her until impact.

Frates wasn't the only Los Altos High School student to urge members to do something about the intersection, where a pedestrian was also struck 18 months ago. The president of the student body, the vice principal and the principal all urged action, as well as several students and parents.

Parent Catarina Mayer recalled how she was struck by a car when she was a student at Egan Junior High School and had her leg broken in two places. Now she is the mother of a LAHS junior.

"I've watched student drop-offs with increasing trepidation," Mayer said. "It's time to act. I implore you to act."

Vice Principal Dawson has directed student crossings on an ad-hoc basis for the past two weeks, and Principal Wynne Satterwhite said she wouldn't be able to keep that up. Concerned parents have offered to help as volunteer crossing guards, but training and liability concerns kept school officials from using them in the short term, Satterwhite told the council.

The council also voted 3-2 to have staff design a raised crosswalk, with flashing lights that can be activated with a button for the intersection of Almond and North Gordon streets. It would mirror what is in front of Almond Elementary School, a short distance away. It also asked the traffic commission to evaluate that intersection according to its ranking of other intersections that needed attention in town, but as a parallel process.

Councilwoman Megan Satterlee and Councilman Jarrett Fishpaw dissented from that vote. Satterlee argued that the crossing guard would make the intersection safer immediately, and that they could take a little more time to figure out whether building a raised crosswalk with lights was the best thing to do, or something else.

Indeed, she said, there was already a ranking of intersections, particularly around schools, and the city ought to take a little time to assess where the LAHS intersection stacked in the priority list. The traffic commission chair and the chairwoman of the Bicycle-Pedestrian Advisory Committee (BPAC) also noted that there were other intersections of concern. They cautioned against investing city money into building a raised crosswalk with lights before figuring out if that was the best response.

Speakers noted that other schools around the city were also of high concern, including the situation on Portola Avenue, when Egan Jr. High School and Bullis Charter School are in session.

"This seems like a 'whack-a-mole' approach, and it bypasses standard processes," said Suzanne Ambiel, who said she spoke as a resident and a parent of a LAHS student, and not as chairwoman of BPAC. "I'm wondering if this is a hasty engineering response."