It turns out it is not just the residents who depended on the Master Plan, which was developed jointly by Johnson County and Overland Park. Apparently the Blue Valley School District and day care centers also assumed the Master Plan could be trusted when it designated 159th as a non-commercial corridor and kept 3 corners of 159th/Metcalf lower intensity retail shopping and the 4 corner all residential.
Following this image is the detailed study. Click on the image for a larger picture.
RE: 159th
and Metcalf rezoning
Date: September 1, 2002
From: Sandy
Hall, Jean Prouty, members SE Tract Committee
6833 West 163rd
Terrace
Stilwell, KS 66085
Children, Schools and Busses:
There are 6 schools that utilize
this intersection on a daily basis. Sergeant Medelin with the Safety and
Security Department of the Blue Valley School District estimates that 1300
parking permits will be issued this school year at Blue Valley High and Blue
Valley West alone. The bulk of those have already been given out.
Of the 1300 approximately 1000 are teenage drivers. The
other 300 are staff.
Currently 4,771 students
attend the six schools that utilize this intersection. A new
elementary school is set in motion to open adjacent to Blue Valley West in the
fall of 2004. Two daycare facilities for small children with a combined
population of 264 and numerous private daycare facilities located within homes
exist in the area. All of these, daycare businesses and 6 schools (soon to be
7) are within one and one half miles of
this intersection.
Blue Valley
High 1075
Blue Valley
West 1275
Blue Valley
Middle 530
Pleasant Ridge
Middle 711
Blue River
Elementary 620
Stanley Elementary 560
Total
students 4771
Blue Valley West and Blue Valley High are unique in
that they share athletic fields. Home football games for
BVW and BVH are both played at BV High. Conversely home soccer games are played
at BVWest for both schools. This creates more use of this intersection
by teenage drivers. When softball begins in late February and
continuing until May there will be 36 to 40 young teenage girls
traveling from BVHigh daily through this intersection on their way to
and from practice at Miller's Woods. They will also use Miller's Woods for
games.
Pedestrians from Blue Valley High, Stanley
Elementary, Blue River Elementary and Blue Valley Middle find crossing 159th a
challenge. They often resort to darting out at unsafe locations to get
across. One BVHigh student was actually hit by a teenage driver
this last school year.
The Blue Valley School District contracts with
Laidlaw for the transport of school children to and from school and within
schools during the day. Twenty five
busses pass through the intersection of 159th and Metcalf a minimum of 100
times each day. We can see the pattern that because this
intersection is between two high schools and so close in proximity to 6 schools
it has a large volume of children passing through it regularly.
The casualties will not be the wary, careful adults
it will be the children.
