East Lansing Parents Raise Alarm On Traffic Safety For Schoolchildren

What should be an easy walk to school only a few houses away has become hazardous, as motorists blast past crossing guards and large construction trucks have been using the school crosswalk as a cut-through, East Lansing resident Carissa Buchholz told ELi as she walked her daughter to second grade classes at Glencairn Elementary School last week.

Nearby residents have been beseeching city leaders, testifying at the East Lansing Transportation Commission and submitting petitions to get the city to erect stop signs, enforce speed limits and implement large truck bans around the school, but Buchholz said the city isn’t understanding how dire the situation is.

“My second grader, her and my son are the most important little human beings in my life, right? We aren’t willing to put our kids’ lives on the line just to get to school,” Buchholz told ELi Friday.

October is National Pedestrian Safety Month and each year state crash data in Michigan reflects that October marks a rise in pedestrian involved traffic crashes. Michigan State Police’s last end of year report on traffic crash data for 2024 reflected that the state saw 2,131 pedestrian involved traffic crashes, a number that’s been steadily rising in recent years. Of those traffic crashes, 156 pedestrians died.

The squeal of brakes can be heard through the residential neighborhood as double trailer trucks rush down the hill leading into the school’s crosswalk on Harrison Road, Buchholz said after dropping off her daughter Friday. 

Crossing guard for Harrison Road Ruth Chapman said Friday that the traffic woes have her very concerned for the 50 some kids she helps get to school each morning. She’s been a crossing guard for 14 years in the area and she said she’s very strict with the kids to wait until she’s all the way in the middle of the crosswalk before they cross, but even with all her caution, it’s not always enough.

“Twice today someone drove by me… I stand in the middle, have my sign out and they drive right by it,” Chapman said. “I’ve had as many as four, five a day that just drive right past me, even though I’m out in the middle of the road.” 

To raise awareness for traffic safety problems around Glencairn, Buchholz organized a “walk to school with us” day last Friday to allow candidates in the upcoming City Council election to witness the problems and speak with families about potential solutions.

Four of the six candidates for the November City Council election attended the walk to school event, including Adam DeLay, Kath Edsall, Liam Richichi and Steve Whelan.

Whelan, who served 25 years in the East Lansing Police Department before retiring, said one thing residents brought up that concerns him is the 35 mile per hour speed limit on the portion of Grand River Avenue receiving traffic from US 127 and Lansing heading East to Downtown East Lansing and Michigan State University’s campus.

More than a decade ago the speed limit in that section of Grand River Avenue, which has only one school crosswalk for students at Glencairn, was 25 mph. Now at 35 mph, the limit is way too high and not respected by motorists heading to MSU, unaware that many elementary school students must cross Grand River Avenue at Kensington Road, Whelan said.

“We need to advocate to the state, with [the Michigan Department of Transportation] to get that slowed down. There’s a lot of things we need to talk about better with the state. I think we need to talk better with the schools,” Whelan said. “And we have passionate parents, which are fabulous. Those… ladies are so articulate and so fantastic, and they’ve hit nothing but roadblocks. We got to have a responsive listening situation.”

Brianna Egan, a Chesterfield Hills Neighborhood resident, knows firsthand the challenges of getting children across traffic-heavy Grand River Avenue and told ELi that she’s tired of city officials ignoring parents who come to city government meetings with their concerns.

For several years, parents have submitted photographs and data to the city on the challenges East Lansing children face staying safe while walking to school, Egan said, and for years the city has spent thousands of dollars on traffic studies that don’t accurately reflect family experiences. 

“How on earth are you going to have a comprehensive traffic study and it’s going to make decisions about the way that I get my little people to school without hearing from parents?” Egan asked.

How the city responds to residents and addresses concerns is a number one issue for Liam Richichi, another candidate for City Council. The city’s imperilled budget is an intertwined issue, Richichi said, as city officials could alleviate financial burdens by limiting duplicative studies and expensive consultants when residents have already done the footwork.

“It’s unfortunate that folks and families are having to put up with this, and I think it’s really become a cultural problem here that our local government and city government have not become responsive to the issues that parents and families are voicing, “ Richichi said. “Time and time again, they…get turned down or they get told that they’re wrong or they don’t need that solution…. a lot of these issues could be addressed by having stop signs too, which only cost $100, $200 and it’s it’s just unfortunate that we don’t have the level of responsiveness that we should.”

There are certain measures the city has taken that parents are appreciative of, like recently raising the pay for crossing guards to ensure the area has enough individuals fulfilling the roles, Buchholz said, but there’s a lot more that needs to be done to ensure kids are getting to school safely.

Tension filled the city’s transportation Commission meeting Monday as Buchholz and several other parents of school-age children laid out concerns for their kids’ safety and the commission heard from consultants and held discussions for the consideration of several stop signs.

Parents have been fighting to work with a “broken” system, Egan told commissioners. Parents have been vocal to their elected leaders, have gone through proper channels, but they aren’t being heard.

“I just don’t understand the end game,” Egan said. “Are we hoping that we go away?”

Parents have been documenting the issues around Glencairn for years, Buchholz said, at no cost to the city. 

“You’re spending literally $50,000 on our consultants here… city taxpayer money…We want to study this? Great. You’re welcome to come out to my kids crosswalk tomorrow and watch us dart these… trucks,” Buchholz said. “Enough, absolutely enough. We will hold you accountable if one of these things hit our kids.”

The commission recognizes the concerns of the community, but the situation isn’t black and white, Mitchell Moore, chair of the Transportation Commission said in response. The city has to ensure infrastructure changes like the ones Glencairn community members are asking for won’t have unintended consequences for another community in the area.

Government always works slower than people want it to, Moore told ELi after the meeting. 

There’s a lot of well-placed pressure on local officials to address the concerns of East Lansing residents from speeding to noise concerns, Moore said, but there has been a lot of turnover in East Lansing governance over the years which presents challenges to solving issues. To make things even more tricky, Mitchell said the city has never implemented a no truck traffic designation on any other city streets so it’s a new process for the commission to recommend and for city staff to review.

The transportation commission has made a motion to approve a no cut through traffic order on Kensington Road, Harrison Road and some other side streets that the city has authority over, Moore said. Now the city is gathering information and data and plans to return the motion to the committee before it is considered by City Council, Moore added.

“I think they’re just being careful and I know residents think it’s so simple, and I get it. I want government to work faster, but at the end of the day, this is something completely new that I think East Lansing city staff want to get it right before it comes back to us to make another motion for it to go eventually to council,” Moore said.