Traffic Woes and DES’s New Transportation Plan

“This isn’t exactly safe,” my neighbor recently said to me as we walked our kids down a sidewalk-less side-street towards Dunwoody Elementary School (DES).

Drivers, bikers, and pedestrians didn’t so much share the road as dodge each other in very slow motion. Fortunately, everyone appeared hyperaware and we arrived in one piece to the sidewalk on Womack Road. Due to heavy congestion, we made better time on foot down Womack Road than the motorists. Literally. 

It took Bob Fiscella, Dunwoody USA blogger, “45 minutes to drive 1.8 miles” to drop off his daughter at DES the one morning she skipped the bus. “Obviously there are a lot of reasons why traffic is what it is,” he said via email. Wanting to help solve the problem, he recently joined the school’s transportation committee.

Each morning, cars congest Womack Road in front of DES as parents drop off their students, commuters drive to work, and Dunwoody High School students head to their nearby campus. Also, DES holds its carpool line, which extends onto Womack Road, until 7:30 a.m. when teachers arrive to their classrooms and can supervise students.

Each afternoon, DES releases walkers and bikers after busses and carpoolers leave campus, due to safety and liability concerns, which discourages families from ditching the automobiles for the healthier and more eco-friendly option of walking or biking in the afternoons. 

“It is a difficult situation and we are working on it,” Johnathan Clark, the principal of DES, said in a recent email, about the school’s transportation woes.

Local blogs, such as Dunwoody Talk and Cycling Joe, have posted about the traffic issues near DES, and commenters offer various solutions: Add a traffic light at the school exit. Hire a police officer to direct traffic. Move the school start time back by fifteen minutes. Create a trail that cuts through Georgia Perimeter College property into Village Mill. Don’t allow left hand turns onto Womack at the staffed crosswalk. Run busses later in the mornings. Start carpool drop-off before 7:30 a.m. Change the traffic flow in the DES parking lot. 

In order to find some solutions, DES administrators met on Monday with various parties, including the City of Dunwoody, Dunwoody Police Department, DeKalb County School System (DCSS) staff, school council members, and parents. 

“The meeting was wonderful,” said Dr. Tim Freeman, Associate Superintendent for Support Services for DCSS. “Mr. Clark is in tune with the issues.”

The group convened for four hours to observe the morning traffic patterns and evaluate the pros and cons of possible solutions, which included many of the ideas offered on local blogs.

“We need facts and data to base our strategies and decisions on,” Freeman said. 

As soon as the data, such as traffic volume and peak times, are available, the DES committee will draft a new transportation plan. 

“We’ll need ample time to communicate it to the Dunwoody community,” Freeman explained, before implementing any changes.

Delaying the morning pick-up times for busses in order to boost ridership is the only option not on the table. (Some students who live about one mile from school hop on the bus well over an hour before school starts.)

“It’s impossible to change,” Freeman explained, due to the system’s three-tiered transportation system and limited resources. Busses pick up and drop off students first for the elementary schools, next for the high schools, and finally for the middle schools. Pushing forward the elementary pick-up time would affect the entire cluster.

Freeman hopes the committee will have the relevant data and a transportation plan formed before the winter break, so DES can implement the changes in the new year. He is optimistic that multiple strategies, applied concurrently, will have a positive impact on congestion.

Despite the potential changes, “Womack will still be a busy road,” Freeman said. Due to Dunwoody’s poor connectivity between neighborhoods, Womack will remain a main corridor for commuters. That problem the school cannot solve.

To submit feedback to the DES committee, email transportation@dunwoodypto.com.