Village OKs alternate parking, pickup locations for Barrington High students
As Barrington High School students and parents prepare for the upcoming academic year, school and village officials are setting up alternate parking and drop-off/pick-up locations needed because of the closure of Hart Road.
A main access point to the school, the road is expected to be closed until Nov. 4 while workers construct a new bridge over Flint Creek.
Students can park or be dropped off and then get a shuttle bus to school from the downtown Metra lot; St. Matthew Lutheran Church, 720 Dundee Ave.; or the parking lot at The Barrington office complex, 540 W. Northwest Highway.
The Barrington village board Monday approved a licensing agreement with Bourns Inc., the owner of the office center. Bourns is allowing the use of up to 125 parking spaces and a spot for shuttles to pick up students beginning on the first day of school, Aug. 22.
The agreement runs through Nov. 30, although it will continue on a month-to-month basis for up to six months, if necessary. The village will pay a fee of $7,500 and be reimbursed by Barrington Community Unit 220 School District. The school district also will indemnify the village on the property.
Marie Hansen, Barrington's director of development services, told the village board Monday that parking permit sales are underway. Thus far, she said, 31 students have signed up for the Metra parking lot, 29 for the Bourns location, and 20 at St. Matthew.
Parking permits are $100 each. Applications have been sent directly to the students' families by the school district.
The village also is encouraging students to take regularly scheduled school buses.
"Our staff worked very hard on it with the district to try to create some places where we could have parking, to allow students to park off-site," Village President Karen Darch said. "And then they are going to be shuttled to the high school during those two months to try to alleviate crazy traffic at the end of the school day."
Other planned measures during the construction include posting a school resource officer and squad car with lights to direct traffic during arrival and dismissal; adjusting traffic signal timings at Hart Road and the high school entrance; deploying crossing guards at the Hager Avenue pedestrian crossing at Main Street; and placing a temporary pedestrian path from the drop-off at the lower Field of Dreams parking lot to the high school, with the village providing wood chips for the path.