Stories of a fire truck stuck in school traffic for 10 minutes or cars speeding through 15-mile per hour school zones may grab attention, but it’s routine congestion and safety that is prompting the Lyon County Sheriff’s Office to increase its presence around Fernley school zones.
Reporting to the Fernley City Council during its Oct. 1 meeting, Chief Deputy Mitch Brantingham said deputies will step up enforcement during school zone hours for the foreseeable future, particularly near Cottonwood Elementary School.
Additional patrols are also planned near the stoplight at Newlands Drive, where Brantingham said deputies have observed traffic backing up across Newlands and Main Street, with drivers running the red light.
“Enforcement’s going to be a challenge over there, but we’re going to do the best we can to try and get those situations sorted out,” he said.
Hardie Lane near Fernley Elementary School is also on the list of target areas, but Brantingham said he doesn’t think issuing citations will cure the congestion, where cars routinely block the roadway while waiting to drop off or pick up children.
Councilman Joe Mendoza related being stuck in traffic for more than 10 minutes in a fire truck, with people yelling at them for trying to get past.
“I’ve noticed during the afternoon pickup that traffic is extremely impeded southbound on Hardie, and they’re not letting anybody go because they all want to make a right turn and they literally stop the traffic there for about 15 or 20 minutes until the bell rings and people start picking up kids,” Mendoza said.
Brantingham said there have been reports of vehicles going 70 miler per hour in the school zone on Hardie Lane, so he assigned a sergeant to observe traffic and take notes.
“We weren’t able to confirm any of that, the highest speed we had was about 32 miles an hour through there,” Brantingham said. “The problem with 32 miles an hour when everybody else has stopped is it is very fast, especially in a 15-mile an hour zone.”
But instead of correcting the issue, Brantingham said conducting traffic stops on Hardie Lane might make the problems worse.
“If we send deputies over there to try and conduct traffic stops on people that are sitting in the roadway there, we’re going to cause a substantial mess in terms of trying to move traffic out of the way, trying to get a vehicle stopped in a safe location,” he said. “We have to weigh, are we creating more of a hazard by conducting the stop versus allowing traffic to function the way it is.”
Instead, Brantingham said the solution may lie in rerouting traffic somehow.
“I think were going to have to go about it through a diversion of traffic differently through the parking lot or a different pickup location,” he said. “But I don’t think there’s an easy solution to that problem. If anybody has an easy solution to it, we’re happy to hear it.”
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