Tragically, too often we hear news about a child being hit by a car in a school drop-off zone. Causes include: Schools enroll many more students now than when they were designed and built. Parents’ busy lives lead them to rush when dropping off and picking up their children. Parents’ concern about crime issues prevents many children from walking by themselves to school.

Parents, school district facilities directors, school district transportation directors and city representatives want to prevent these school traffic safety problems in the future. Yet they often propose different, sometimes even conflicting, solutions. Blueprints/technical drawings explaining proposed solutions often make the process even more confusing for non-engineers and non-architects.

At Underwood & Rosenblum, Inc. (U&R), we are committed to keeping children safe when arriving at or leaving school. We also want to dramatically improve the associated traffic flow. That is why we developed the nationally recognized “9-Step School Traffic Safety Solution.” It quickly generates the safest, most cost- effective plan. Plus it develops associated budgets for school districts. All of this is possible because 9-Step offers the only planning process led by civil engineers specializing in providing creative solutions for school drop-off zones.

Based on his experience with thousands of school projects, U&R’s president developed the 9-Step solution. He and his staff have successfully implemented it in a variety of school districts. National School Transportation News and other professional journals have featured our successes.

U&R's president has given presentations to more than 20 conferences, parent organizations, school facility directors and school traffic safety directors. They all want a solution and support the 9-Step program. However, only the school district superintendents and boards of directors have final authority to decide to implement the 9-Step solution.

	Change dangerous out-of-date drop-off zones to zones that answer today’s safety demands.
	Custom design the safest, most cost-effective drop-off zones.
	Dramatically improve traffic flow.
	Make it much safer on campus for students who walk from home.
	Generate consensus on a plan among your school district facilities director, and if appropriate, city representatives.
	Complete the planning process in about nine weeks.
	Develop associated budgets for school districts -- the facilities director, school board or other decision-makers.
	Allow parents to understand and participate in the engineering planning process.

For school traffic safety solutions to work best, they need the buy-in of all concerned parties. One of the most useful tools for generating consensus on this topic is U&R’s unique multi-colored map we create for each school. Locations of sidewalks, school grounds, streets, crosswalks and school drop-off zones are clearly illustrated. This helps parents, school administrators, city planners and civil engineers gain a mutual understanding of the situation—and proposed solutions.

As an alternative, U&R’s school traffic safety experts review and provide feedback on proposed civil engineering projects developed by others.

Visit the other School Traffic Safety pages of U&R's Web site: Request Presentation, Articles and FAQ.