By Rick Wright
Staff Writer
 
Mahoney Middle School students will be safer this fall when they get on or off  buses, according to Greg Marles, director of buildings and grounds for South Portland’s school department.
The bus and visitor drop-off area on Ocean Street is being reconfigured to protect the safety of Mahoney’s students, Marles said.
The work, now under way, is expected to be finished by Aug. 27 at a cost of $235,000, including construction and design costs.
The expenses are covered by a $5.8 million bond South Portland voters approved last summer to upgrade the city’s secondary schools.
The money also will be used for other capital improvement projects in city schools this summer.
They include installing a sprinkler system, hot water heater and boiler in addition to removing asbestos at Memorial Middle School.
Security systems featuring camera surveillance and card control access also will be implemented at both middle schools.
The small loop in front of Mahoney now causes buses and cars to back up onto Ocean Street at the start and end of every school day.
The congestion occurs on a busy part of Ocean Street between Broadway and Highland Avenue.
“Because of the congestion, it’s more hazardous for young folks being dropped off,” said South Portland Police Chief Ed Googins.
Under the new plan, all buses will be routed behind Mahoney via Broadway. The buses will pick up and drop off children beside a new road on the south side of the school that will run parallel to the athletic field and connect to Ocean Street, Marles said.
Parents will still be able to drop off and pick up their children using the current loop, which will be enlarged to accommodate seven parking spaces. Parents will not be allowed to drop off or pick up children behind the school.
The system will create more security in the school because it will require everyone to go through the front door where they can more easily be monitored by school staff.
“By pushing those students in one entrance, we’ve now created a secure vestibule so that if someone came into the building, a visitor, they have to check into the front office. They cannot get into the school,” Marles said.
Safety for all will be enhanced because it gets children and buses off Ocean Street and reduces chances of accidents, according to Marles.
“This allows a separation of buses from parents and gives parents in private vehicles more opportunity to pull off the road,” Googins said.
The new plan also gives the fire department 360-degree access to the school’s exterior with the addition of the new road beside Mahoney.
“It would give us better access to that side of the building. It allows trucks to get all the way around the building,” said Miles Haskell, South Portland deputy fire chief.
Haskell, who attended several of the project’s planning meetings, said the new road would accommodate aerial ladders as well as engine company fire trucks.
The project also includes building a new pull-off area for city buses on the Broadway side of Mahoney, adds more green space to the school’s grounds and improves Mahoney’s water drainage system. The current entrance to the rear parking lot will be combined with the current exit near the intersection of Broadway and Cottage Road.
School officials considered several options for the new bus and visitor drop-off loop before settling for this design.
“This one made the most sense. It creates the best control and flow of traffic around the building. It creates the best safe environment for kids to be dropped off. It limits all kinds of car traffic. It pulls a lot of cars off the road,” Marles said.
 
Rick Wright can be reached at 282-4337, ext. 237 or news@inthesentry.com.