Fort Mill leaders sought changes after crossing guard killed. SCDOT just disappointed them

The call for safer roads in front of Fort Mill area schools is growing louder from elected officials, but a major part of their concerns will go unanswered.

The Fort Mill School District and city of Tega Cay joined Fort Mill in asking for help to improve traffic safety along state-maintained school roads. Those requests followed the death of a 61-year-old school crossing guard last month after he was struck by a vehicle at the shared bus entrance to Fort Mill Elementary School and Fort Mill Middle School.

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The South Carolina Department of Transportation confirmed Monday that it’s working with the school district on school zone safety. Flashing school beacons in front of Fort Mill Elementary School and Fort Mill Elementary School will be updated this month, said spokeswoman Hannah Robinson.

“We also have plans to clear trees between the schools’ main entrance and the bus entrance to provide better visibility,” Robinson said.

But a request from both municipalities and the school district to lower the speed limit likely won’t be part of the fix.

“At this time, we don’t anticipate a change to the current 30 mph speed limit,” Robinson said.

The state department doesn’t have a set speed limit within school zones but the limit already drops from 45 mph to 30mph, Robinson said, prompting the decision not to reduce it further.

The department will install taller flashing beacon polls to increase visibility and will follow its engineering guidelines to determine flashing times.

“Generally, the flashers start flashing 30 minutes before the start of school until 15 minutes after the morning bell,” Robinson said Thursday. “In the afternoon, the flashers begin 15 minutes before dismissal until 30 minutes after dismissal.”

State guidelines allow longer flashing times, and most of the ones in Fort Mill run for a full hour.

The ones in front of the Fort Mill schools where the crossing guard death occurred run 7-8:40 a.m. and 1:30-3:40 p.m. Those times are built around 7:30 a.m. and 8:10 a.m. start times at the two schools, and afternoon bells at 2 p.m. and 3:10 p.m.

The school district was aware of SCDOT’s stance on the speed limit and part of a resolution that the school board passed on Friday asking for a safety review is an appeal to reconsider it, said district spokesman Joe Burke. That request isn’t just for two schools but for all of them in the district, he said.

“The resolution is part of the district’s ongoing efforts to improve safety in all school zones,” Burke said.

No charges in death of crossing guard

Crossing guard Stanley Brucker died after he was struck by a vehicle last month. No charges were filed against the driver who struck him, who remained at the scene. A multi-agency law enforcement review found speed wasn’t a factor in the incident.

Family members set up a GoFundMe page with a goal of raising $7,500 to help with travel expenses to attend the funeral. More than $31,000 of donations poured in since.

Tega Cay joins Fort Mill, school district to ask for help

Tega Cay Mayor Chris Gray works in transportation, installing traffic signals and building roads. Gray takes any traffic-related death personally, he said Monday night, ahead of the city’s unanimous vote to request changes from the state Transportation Department.

“SCDOT does a pretty decent job of building new roads,” Gray said. “They do a pretty decent job in maintaining the roads. They do a terrible job in promoting pedestrian safety.”

The issue is bigger than just the two Fort Mill schools where the crossing guard was struck, Gray said. Schools attended by Tega Cay students like Fort Mill High, Gold Hill Elementary and Gold Hill Middle don’t have enough pedestrian safety measures in place, he said.

Beyond schools, it took the city five years to get a traffic signal approved at the New Gray Rock and Sutton roads intersection, Gray said. The city offered to buy, install and maintain flashing beacons at city crosswalks if the transportation department would allow them, but it still took two years just to get them approved, he said.

“Anything that we can do to hold SCDOT’s feet to flames is what we need to do as a people and as a council,” Gray said.

The resolution approved Monday night in Tega Cay is similar to one Fort Mill Town Council passed April 8 and another passed by the school district on April 12. All ask for the transportation department to complete a full safety review of all state-maintained roads that serve the 20 schools in the district.

All request signage and safety upgrades, and a reduction of the speed limits to 25 mph at least for an hour each during morning drop off and afternoon pick up.

Springfield Parkway safety measures

Whatever measures the transportation department takes in front of two Fort Mill schools could have a much larger impact, given how similar state roads serving school sites are.

The populations in Fort Mill, Tega Cay and the unincorporated areas between them have grown in recent decades beyond anything those areas had seen. As a result, a bypass was built around Fort Mill at a time when the school district built school after new school to keep up with enrollment.

The district bought property along the developing bypass areas to put those schools.

Fort Mill Parkway and Springfield Parkway connect to form that bypass. Fort Mill Parkway begins at Riverview Elementary School on its west side.

As it travels the five miles to S.C. 160 where it becomes Springfield Parkway, it passes River Trail and Doby’s Bridge elementary schools, Banks Trail and Forest Creek middle schools and Catawba Ridge High. At one point, a 1.5-mile stretch connects five schools on the parkway.

The four miles of Springfield Parkway between S.C. 160 and U.S. 21 Bypass has another six schools, including Fort Mill elementary and middle schools.

The main entrance and exit to the two schools sits half a mile north of the Springfield Parkway and S.C. 160 intersection. Coming from the intersection, it’s 350 feet to a sign just past the QuikTrip parking lot indicating a 45 mph speed limit.

In another 650 feet there’s a sign showing a school zone ahead. It’s right in front of a new intersection, where Handy White Way that opened four years ago lines up with a large senior living site under construction now.