Parents raise concerns about Mill Creek crosswalk

Keri Donoho walks her children to Mill Creek School almost every day.

And she said she worries almost every day about the crosswalk they use.

“It’s dangerous for our kids, it’s dangerous for our crossing guard,” she said. “Just watching her trying to get people stopped; every time I’m thinking this is not safe, this is not good,” she said.

The school zone crosswalk is on Nifong Blvd. right off of Woods Edge Road, about half a mile up from the school.

Donoho said she has observed drivers who don’t notice the sign for the school zone until they’re right on it.

“The speed limit signs are too far away for people to even remember to slow down right in that spot,” she said. “We watch our crossing guard try to get out and stop traffic and typically there’s anywhere from five to 10 cars that speed through before she can even safely get out to stop the cars for families to cross over to school.”

There are no signs that alert drivers to it before they get there going west on Nifong, but there are signs next to the crosswalk. There is a blinking school zone sign on the other side of the crosswalk.

ABC17 clocked drivers going through the school zone at about 40 miles per hour, which is the speed limit, but when school is back in session, they’ll have to slow down to 20 mph.

Donoho said drivers don’t slow down and constantly whip through the crosswalk, even when there are children around.

She believes it’s only a matter of time before a child, parent, or the crossing guard is hurt.

“The cars are coming up behind the other cars so fast that even if it happens that a car is stopped my fear is when I’m walking across with my kids… you know, someone comes up too fast, it can’t get stopped,” she said.

She said they’ve had the Columbia Police Department come out during the school year to check speeds, and she said they frequently pull people over for speeding in that zone.

ABC17 News reached out to Columbia Public Works to find out if anything could be done about the lack of visibility on the crosswalk. They said they will reach out to traffic engineers to see what kinds of things they can do to fix that.