Dear Mayor Freed and City Council Members,

We are presenting this urgent petition as concerned parents and citizens regarding the safety of our children who attend Frank Love Elementary. Our school was originally built to house 500 students and we are currently over capacity at 700. We have just been informed by the Northshore School District that they will be adding an additional 100-150 kindergarten students in the 2015-2016  school year.

Within a one-mile radius of the school, children are encouraged to walk, however the current number of sidewalks and crosswalks are inadequate. We anticipate that there will be numerous parents who will choose not to put their kindergarteners on the bus and will drive to school, thereby increasing the traffic around the school and in the parking lot. There is also increasing number of parked cars on both sides of the streets, creating blind spots for drivers.

The last three years we have seen traffic increase and the safety of our walking children decrease. As a result, MORE parents are choosing to drive their children to school creating an even more dangerous environment that will end in a grievous tragedy, even death, if we do not act now.

We have enclosed a map of the roads around the school where we are petitioning for the following changes and additions:

   *** Create crosswalks on 4th Ave W at  220th St. SW, 218th St. SW and 216th St. SW
 
   *** Repaint current crosswalks to expand their visibility, and/or create lighted and/or flagged crosswalks.
 
   *** Expand sidewalks on 224th SW between 4th Ave W and Meridian to include both sides of the street.
 
   ***  Add numerous additional school zone signs within the area as noted on the map to encourage traffic to slow down and bring awareness to student pedestrian traffic.

We are also including letters from families directly affected by the changes in traffic and general population of the school. These are harrowing stories where children who live directly across the street have almost been hit numerous times over the years, and parents describing instances of children directly in danger that could be prevented with our petitioned changes.

 We understand that the City is already considering sidewalk construction and pedestrian improvements throughout the area and request that our petition be taken into consideration at the same time and that improvements made over the summer before the new school year, with the increased student population, begins. Together We Can is the Frank Love PTA motto, and by working together, we can create a safe environment for all our children.