The opening of the new Charles H. Bullock school in Montclair – and the safety issues associated with pedestrians and vehicles for any school area – were discussed last night at length.

Fourth Ward council member Dr. Renee Baskerville hosted the informative evening, which lasted from 7:00 – 10:00 p.m., as part of her ongoing and popular fourth ward monthly meetings.

“We had speakers - township engineer Kim Craft, Lt. Kenneth Mischia, bureau commander of the traffic division for the Montclair Police department, and we listened to input from local residents and businesses,” said Baskerville. “It was packed. We had about 200 people.”

The meeting, originally planned to be at the new Charles H. Bullock school, had to be moved at the last minute due to the certificate of occupancy not being in place yet. Luckily, the Head Start program offered up their facility for the meeting.

Baskerville said she believes a lot of input from the meeting will equal positive changes to the original plans for the proposed traffic flow in the area.

“All the neighbors offered input,” she said. “We will make amendments on a lot of the proposed changes.”

Local businesses including St. Marks Church, Head Start, Martins Funeral Home and the American Legion were also on hand to offer their ideas as to how to keep kids safe while not hurting their businesses, since both driving and parking rules will be changed.

But the area, already congested with numerous homes and businesses, is surely a complex spot to add a school into, with more cars and more kids sharing space.

Miscia said he believed the proposed changes put forth by residents and local businesses will be beneficial to the traffic flow in the area. But if you drive in this area already, things will be different in September when school opens.

“For the new school, there are some major changes,” he noted. “The flow of Hartley Street right now is one way, but the direction of the one way will be changed. In September, it will go one way out to Bloomfield Avenue from Washington Street.”

The reason for this particular change is that with the school driveway entrance next to the school, it is a safety issue to change the flow of one way traffic on Hartley.

“If we didn’t change this, all the traffic would come out by the school,” said Miscia.

Other proposed changes include:

--Do Not Enter signs will be rolled out every day just west of the driveway on Washington Avenue, and just west of Hartley.

--There will also be a roll out stop sign at Fulton Street

--Near the Head Start building on Washington Avenue, there will be a one way flow of traffic. However, at night, this will become a two-way flow of traffic.

Roll out stop signs, it should be noted, are already successful in Montclair, at Watchung School, Mt. Hebron School, and Norwood Avenue.

As per parking, there will no parking on one side of the street as follows:

-east side of New St.

--south side of Fulton Street

This is so there will be better visibility for both cars and buses during school times. However, this no parking rule is only from 8:00 a.m. – 4:00 p.m.

For parents, an easy to use drop-off zone will be accessible via the school driveway. However, if want to access this entranceway, you must turn into it by making a right off Bloomfield Avenue, which means you must be driving South – towards Glen Ridge.

If you are heading North on Bloomfield Avenue, it is illegal to cross the avenue to enter the school entrance driveway and drop off area. You must turn around somewhere legal.

To get a view of how this all looks, check out the photo, courtesy of Montclair engineer Kim Craft.