Naperville and Aurora parents upset that their children are being forced walk to school, requiring them to cross busy Montgomery Road, appealed to Indian Prairie District 204 this week to reinstate bus service to their neighborhoods.
Families were recently informed the district would no longer be providing bus transportation to Still Middle School in Aurora for students who live in the Eagle Pointe neighborhood in Naperville or to Fischer Middle School in Aurora for students in Aurora’s Colony Lakes area.
Families in the northern sections of the White Eagle subdivision in Naperville were also told their bus service to Still was to be canceled, but the district reversed that decision after residents complained they were notified a week after the other neighborhoods and didn’t have sufficient time to prepare.
Bus service to that area will cease in the 2023-24 school year, officials said.
The decision didn’t sit well with families in Eagle Pointe and Colony Lakes. Parents asked the school board Monday to reconsider.
Colony Lakes resident Caitlin DeVolder, whose sixth-grader will attend Fischer starting next week, said many parents are concerned. Slippery conditions in the winter combined with high traffic volume pose potential dangers to students who are on foot, especially if a car were to go off the road, she said.
“Hopefully, there (are no) kids there if that happens,” DeVolder said.
Equally alarming, she said, are the number of vehicles that get stuck eastbound on Montgomery Road at Middlebury Drive waiting for Canadian National trains and sometimes do fast U-turns to head in a different direction, she said.
“They’re not going to see the kids that are crossing if the traffic is all the way back down. It’s extremely dangerous. It’s very worrisome,” DeVolder said.
Parent Nitin Gautam said Eagle Pointe families are concerned about kids having to weave through vehicles backed up for trains headed westbound on Montgomery Road if they have to cross at Frontenac Road.
If there’s no train, Gautam said, few drivers adhere to the posted speed of 40 mph. More often, cars travel at 50 to 55 mph, she said.
Shankar Fatwani, who lives in Eagle Pointe, said crossing Montgomery Road is not only too dangerous for children, but for adults as well.
“I do bike sometimes, and I’m scared to cross that road because the traffic is never at a stop. The cars are always continuously moving, and the walk sign is, I guess, less than 10 or 15 seconds,” Fatwani said.
Colony Lakes resident Vanessa Sanchez asked if the district planned to designate a safe walking route for students. Walking on the sidewalk along Eola Road in the winter is a hazard because it’s never plowed, she said.
“I really challenge anybody who’s looking at this with clear eyes to go into the Gombert (Elementary School) neighborhood and go to the most southeast portion of the neighborhood and take that walk,” Sanchez said. “See if they’ll make it to school on time.”
As is customary at board meetings, President Laurie Donahue read a statement before parents spoke explaining that board members would not provide immediate feedback during the meeting, but “follow-up will be provided by an administrator as appropriate.”
Figures from the Illinois Department of Transportation show the annual average daily traffic on Montgomery Road is 8,650 vehicles.
On Eola Road north of Montgomery Road, per-day traffic volumes are three times higher at 27,300, according to IDOT.
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