Solving the Lehman congestion problem

When I wrote about the city council’s response to a proposed ordinance amendment that would attempt to solve the problem of off-campus parking by Lehman High School students by requiring residents in the neighborhoods where the students are parking to twist and turn through and around all kinds of bureaucratic obstacles to obtain parking permits, I mentioned the solution proposed did absolutely nothing to address the root causes of the problem. According to his testimony provided at Tuesday night’s city council meeting, Police Chief Jeff Barnett said the problem was caused by students needing to quickly drive to their after-school jobs and avoiding the congestion that comes from using the school’s parking lot. And, according to council member Daphne Tenorio, the residents of the area affected by the off-campus parking, especially those in the Steeplechase subdivision, were demanding the city pay the costs of installing no-parking signs on the affected residential streets.

Think about that for a moment. The residents were demanding the city fix a problem caused by the school. These same folks that scream about the notion that the city’s property tax rate is so high come running to the city screaming for it to shell out money to fix a neighborhood problem the city is not even responsible for causing. Don’t these folks realize that only 20.6 percent of their total property tax bill goes to the city, yet 54.2 percent — more than twice as much — goes to the school district? And residents must pay that school district property tax even if they don’t have children attending Hays CISD schools? Get a grip here — the school district needs to help fix the problem.

And here’s how it can do exactly that:

As I understand it, the congestion is caused by the fact that all the students parked on the Lehman High parking lot must exit onto Lehman Road, just south of that road’s termination at Goforth, an intersection where traffic is controlled by three stop signs. The students exiting the parking lot, combined with other traffic going north on Lehman quickly form a long queue from the intersection blocking the exit from the student parking lot.

To fix that problem, the school district, or perhaps simply Lehman High School independently, needs to contract with the Kyle Police Department to hire a pair of off-duty uniformed officers to direct the traffic. One officer is stationed at the parking lot entrance to temporarily start and stop the traffic going north and south on Lehman, directing the student vehicles exiting from the parking lot, while the second is positioned at the intersection to temporarily start and stop the traffic on Goforth, negating the need for the Lehman traffic to stop at that intersection during this time and preventing the backups. I would expect the total time the officers would be required to expedite the flow of traffic would be 30 minutes each school day. ThaT should not be a high ticket item, especially for a school district that is seeking voter approval next month on a quarter of a billion dollar bond package. This arrangement, in fact, would mean a more rapid after school exit for those in the Lehman High parking lot than for those parked in the surrounding neighborhoods.

Incidentally, voters will be asked to vote on that bond package the same day the district has scheduled a parade to celebrate its 50^th anniversary. Go figure.