The bus stops here

Marisa O’Neil

Starting today, Harbor View Elementary School’s bus riders will get

to set foot on an island each day on their way to school.

It isn’t part of a new reality television show -- it’s just the

new traffic flow at the school now that the long-awaited bus turnout

is complete. The turnout has a parent drop-off lane at the curb and a

turnout for buses to pull out of traffic and stop on Goldenrod

Avenue.

A crescent-shaped island of concrete about 20 yards long lies

between the traffic lanes.

“I call it ‘Bus Island,’” Principal Mellissia Christensen said

with a laugh.

Students got a dress rehearsal Monday, learning the rules of the

new road. They learned that parents will drop off by the curb inside

the two-lane turnout and bus passengers will alight onto the island,

then carefully cross to the curb.

Christensen took each class out to the turnout and explained the

new protocols, using colorful examples.

“Students are not to be dropped off in the drive-through lane,”

she explained. “The driveway is the alligator swamp. It’s dangerous,

so you don’t put your feet in it.

“And on Bus Island, there’s one way on and one way off.”

To drive home the safety message, the students role-played how the

morning and afternoon protocols will work. Using prop cutouts of taxi

cabs from an earlier musical at the school, some students, like

11-year-old Alexis Simon, pretended to be parents dropping off their

children at school.

Max Stecca, 11, played her son. He held up traffic as he

“searched” the car for his lunch money, causing the other cars to go

around them.

“I was the mom,” Alexis said. “I had to yell at him and tell him

to find his money.”

“It was very stressful,” Max deadpanned.

And like any valuable lesson, someone showed what not to do.

“I got ran over,” 11-year-old Saylor Chroff exclaimed.

School officials and parents are hoping the turnout will help

prevent those accidents by easing the traffic on Goldenrod Avenue.

Before the turnout was built, the buses stopped on that street,

often blocking traffic. Parents dropped off their students in the

busy parking lot at the top of the hill.

Now students can enter through the top or through the turnout at

the southwest corner of the campus.

“We’re hoping it will relieve the congestion in the morning on

Goldenrod [Avenue],” said Camille Hostetler, president of the

school’s PFO. “Hopefully it’ll take off a big burden. We’re all

excited.”

The turnout, part of Newport-Mesa Unified School District’s

massive multi-school, bond-funded Measure A facilities-improvement

project, was originally planned for construction last year. District

officials decided to delay the project until the summer, so

construction noise and traffic would not disrupt the students.