More traffic changes near Santa Rosa’s Steele Lane Elementary planned

Santa Rosa is expanding a pilot program aimed at improving pedestrian and traffic safety around Steele Lane Elementary School.

City traffic engineers in March implemented a road diet on a small stretch of westbound Steele Lane to provide a dedicated lane for buses and parents dropping off and picking up their kids.

The effort, the first of its kind in the city, was intended to test how the city could make school commute safer by providing a greater buffer between school traffic and cars traveling along the busy roadway.

City staffers are proposing additional changes as part of a second phase of the pilot that they say can help further slow traffic around the school, reducing the rate and seriousness of accidents.

The plan calls for removing one eastbound lane on Steele Lane between Service Court and Rowe Drive and adding a striped two-way left-turn lane allowing vehicles to more easily turn on and off Steele Lane and into the neighborhoods surrounding the school.

The road currently features two eastbound lanes, a striped bike lane and street parking, but the lack of a dedicated turn lane often leads to traffic backing up. The bike and parking lanes will remain.

The changes are expected to be in place by the start of the new school year in August and will last four months.

Traffic engineers in March removed one westbound lane from Meyers to Rowe drives and turned it into a designated school drop-off zone separated from through-traffic by plastic bollards.

During the pilot, the traffic engineering team examined traffic flow, any queuing on the roadway caused by the lane reduction, speeds and potential conflicts between cars, cyclists and pedestrians.

The team wanted to see how more space for buses, cyclists and pedestrians could help students and parents more safely access the school, while also assessing any traffic impacts in the high-traffic area just east of Highway 101 and near Mendocino Avenue, according to the city.

Their analysis showed the project was beneficial, but the design needed some tweaks.

The pilot led to a 4% speed reduction, about 1.6 mph, outside drop-off and pick-up times and an even greater reduction of 14% or 5.4 mph during peak school hours, according to the city.

Respondents to a public survey, including parents and teachers, said the slower traffic and additional buffer made it more comfortable to navigate around the school.

About half the 167 respondents supported permanent traffic calming measures, while others said improvements such as signage, more space for merging in and out of the drop-off lane and easier access to surrounding neighborhoods would help.

Those changes are being implemented as part of the second phase of the pilot.

Staffers plan to add signs to let drivers know when to merge and that the closed lane is for school-use only. They also will add a protected westbound bike lane so that cyclists don’t have to share the roadway with buses and school traffic.

You can reach Staff Writer Paulina Pineda at 707-521-5268 or paulina.pineda@pressdemocrat.com. On X (Twitter) @paulinapineda22.