If you’ve ever driven down West Market Street around 2:30pm in front of Resnik Elementary School, you’ve seen(or been stuck in) the back up of cars trying to enter the parking lot from the east. Cars back up to Pershing and sometimes as far back as the traffic light at Acme 1, and you wonder “Why?”
I’ve heard from Resnik parents since school opened in September, so I spoke with APS Board Member/Resnik parent Rene Molenaur, and APS Director of Business Affairs, Debra Foulk to see how the City can help. Ironically, Ms. Foulk and I contacted Akron’s Traffic Engineering Department within a day of each other in January to get some relief for what is a dangerous situation. I requested a traffic study, Traffic Engineering suggested adjusting the timing of the Traffic light in front of the school, but the 5.5 additional seconds of time has been little help.
Resnik has only 13 students who are eligible for bus transportation, and also has the highest amount of students (339) that don’t qualify for buses in the District; hence the bottleneck on West Market. Most of these 339 students are from Ward 8 and get picked up after school. The current 3 traffic lanes on N Meadowcroft Dr. aren’t sufficient to carry this stream of traffic.
I’m working on getting all parties involved together in the next 2 weeks, and hopefully we can come up with a solution, or at the least, a plan. This may be a topic at the March Ward meeting, so stay tuned. If you have ideas, please reach out to me via email below
ward8@akronohio.gov