Bend worries: Safe or scary path to school?

No sidewalk, barely a shoulder along a busy road, and a few seconds every day 10-year-old Ella Kanapek holds her breath on the way to school in northeast Bend.

“It’s like the wind goes by your ear and you’re like woo,” Kanapek said. “It’s actually kind of scary, because the cars are going right past you.”

Ella is just one of about a dozen kids NewsChannel 21 spotted recently crossing the canal along Purcell Boulevard near Ponderosa Elementary. There’s no other way over the water, so the students walk or bike to school just a few feet away from the traffic — too close for some parents.

“Our school is just right here,” parent Angelina Anello-Dennee said. “You want to be able to say, ‘You should be able to got to school safely on your bike, or walk.’ And I don’t feel that way. I have to go with them, in order for them to be safe.”

Bend Transportation Engineer Robin Lewis said in the last year, the city has made the canal bridge a priority to get a separate pedestrian crossing, but there’s no timeline for the project.

“We’ve identified the priorities, that took time,” Lewis said. “Once we have those concepts’ designs and costs, then we can work on getting those sequences into the capital (funding) lists.”

And so, Lewis said any construction along the route over the canal is at least a few years down the road.

And although Bend-La Pine Schools offer what’s called “hazard bus transportation” for the roughly 200 students who live across the bridge, some kids told NewsChannel 21 they prefer a quick walk, rather than a bus ride full of detours.

There’s another troublesome spot just a bit farther north of the canal: The intersection at Purcell and Empire Avenue.

“I don’t really want my daughter crossing that by herself,” parent Lesli Dickinson said. “I don’t think with the amount of traffic that there is safe for anybody to cross during the morning and afternoon.”

Lewis said, “That’s a tough intersection. Drivers want to make a very fast right. We need drivers to be aware that’s there’s students there – which they should be, it’s within the school zone.”

But parents half-joke it’s more like a drag-racing strip.

“Cars are just flying by,” Anello-Dennee said. “There’s a car flying by right now,” she added, pointing to the road.

According to Lewis, high speeds near schools are not a problem; as most drivers get an A+ grade when it comes to slowing down.

“We’re not seeing speeding in those school zones,” Lewis said. “We’re seeing very tight compliance from drivers. So sometimes it’s perception, as opposed to reality.”

Still, parents are banding together forming their own solution: a “walking school bus” program launched just this year.

“It makes a larger group of kids moving in an organized group, so they’re visible to drivers,” PTA President Shara Carnahan said.