CORPUS CHRISTI, Texas — Corpus Christi Police Officers came to the rescue at the School of Science and Technology, where traffic has been a nightmare.
Yesterday, traffic from the school's newly built campus on the 6600 block of Evans Road, was backing up traffic all the way onto Saratoga Boulevard as parents and teachers were trying to drop off children.
This morning, Senior Officer Richard Olden, along with other officers in CCPD's Traffic division were sent to the area.
"Somebody called the chief's office, and the chief called the Traffic division and that's our forte," Olden said. "We come out and fix these problems."
Olden said putting a traffic-control system in place with some directional cones to help guide drivers helped the situation out a lot.
"Once we got that in place, then everything went pretty smooth," he said.
When Olden arrived, he found the problem: Three streets converge into the school's only entrance near Evans Road and Acushnet Drive, and the three-way stop sign at the intersection backs up traffic. So, this morning, Olden directed drivers through that intersection.
He also found there aren't any clearly painted crosswalks in that area.
"There's a three-way stop that may need to be turned into a stop light but first thing is first," he said. "We need to get crosswalks for the kids. The school, I know they just opened, but you know we need to do things the right way. Paint the crosswalks, so, the kids have something safe to walk (in) across the street."
Olden said some School of Science and Technology parents and staff members told him the CCPD presence definitely helped.
"(They) said that we cleared out the traffic 30 minutes earlier than what it was yesterday and that's what it's all about," Olden said. "Getting the kids to school safely and getting the parents in and out so that they can get on their way to work and get their day going."
Traffic in the area is expected to be heavy this week, so police are encouraging parents to give themselves plenty of time to deal with the bottleneck.
