Avery Creek Elementary Improves Safety with Car Rider Lanes
Back to School Season
As August is nearing its end, it is time to return to school. As students and teachers prepare to be back in the classroom, parents and guardians are preparing to be back in the school pickup line. The school pickup line can be chaotic.
What is a Car Rider?
One way to organize the chaos of school traffic is by developing a car rider, which is what McGill did to improve the pick up and drop off process at Avery Creek Elementary School in Buncombe County, North Carolina. While not all schools have car rider systems, and not everyone knows what a car rider system is, they have many benefits for drivers, students, teachers, and the school campus at large. Car rider systems are mainly known for the way they improve traffic management / organization and reduce risks for students and drivers. The defined lanes make it easier to keep traffic moving and keep the lines of traffic separate (keeping those coming in separate from those going out).
Avery Creek Elementary School
Avery Creek Elementary School needed a car rider system because of the traffic that would form during student pick up hours. The traffic from cars waiting to get into the school parking lot to pick up students was backing up onto NC-191, which blocked other cars from being able to exit Borg Warner and the nearby apartment complex. The way traffic was backing up was a safety issue, and McGill was eager to help.
For the Avery Creek Elementary School car rider, McGill’s civil engineering team completed the following items.
- We did a site visit to review and make notes about the existing conditions.
- We prepared a conceptual grading plan, stormwater plan, and site plan based on field survey data. This included preliminary sizing of the required stormwater control measures (SCMs) since there is impervious surface area at the site.
- We met with Buncombe County stormwater to review the stormwater treatment and detention options, which were revised, as needed, based on feedback and the cost estimates.
- We met with NCDOT to go over modifications to the Borg Warner entrance and required permitting.
- We met with Buncombe County Schools staff to go over concept plans and get feedback on the design development drawings.
- We prepared design development drawings for grading, stormwater, and site plans, and then we got input and revisions from Buncombe County Schools, which we incorporated into the final permit submittal drawings.
- We prepared the final erosion control drawings, calculations, narratives, and forms to submit to the NCDEQ Land Quality.
- We prepared encroachment agreement drawings to submit to NCDOT.
- We prepared the final stormwater conveyance, treatment, and detention drawings as well as the related calculations and forms for Buncombe County Stormwater.
- We revised drawings, as necessary, to reflect feedback received from permit agencies. After the comments were made, we submitted the final permits.
Car Riders Promote Safety
After we completed all the necessary steps, we prepared construction documents and technical specifications for Buncombe County Schools as the final deliverable for the project.
Ben Cathey, the Civil / Site Practice Area Leader at McGill, says that car rider lanes are always unique, regardless of where they are placed, because they are not like normal roads. Designing a car rider lane is not like designing your standard road—it is like building storage for cars. Ben also emphasizes how car rider lanes are really meant to ensure safety for everyone engaging in school pick up and drop off. It is important to keep cars from piling up in a line in the street because backed up traffic can cause accidents and angry drivers, among other things.
Improving Communities
McGill is committed to improving communities in the Southeast. We are excited about the improved car rider system at Avery Creek Elementary School and hope all returning to school have a great start. Check out our website to learn more about our civil engineering team and to see when we finish our next two car rider projects, which are in progress for North Buncombe Elementary and Erwin Middle School.
