City commissions traffic study on Elm Street to address school congestion

LACONIA — City councilors approved the funding of a traffic study along Elm Street to determine a solution to congestion around school pickup time.

Traffic woes along Elm Street have been the subject of intrigue for years owing to the congestion that results in the afternoon near Elm Street School as parents arrive to pick up their children at the end of the school day. 

“As we’ve talked about on a number of occasions, there’s concern over the traffic on Elm Street at Elm Street School during pickup in the afternoon,” City Manager Kirk Beattie said at the council's regular meeting Monday night at City Hall. “We have put out a request to hire a company to do a traffic study and also come up with alternative traffic solutions.”

The study, which will be conducted by Weston & Sampson and is to be completed by Nov. 1, will consider costs and analyze three options to reduce congestion. 

“We don’t want to stand here and say, ‘What would it cost to do X?’” Beattie said. “We wanted them to have an opportunity as the traffic specialists to look at a variety of options, some would probably be an exorbitant cost and some may be very simple, that they could come up with.” 

The first item to be studied is the widening of Elm Street to accommodate a lane for drivers to line up for child pickup. The second item is a potential access road from the driveway at Bond Beach to Elm Street south of the school and the third is an access road from the same beach driveway to Elm Street north of the school.

“We’re having them look at if widening the lanes for the drivers picking up their children, the access road that we’ve talked about quite a bit going out to Bond Beach Road and then also an opportunity for the driveway to essentially wrap around the school, the pickup queue to wrap around the school,” Beattie said. “And maybe even add some parking out back if it takes up parking spots from the school.”

The winning bid was evaluated by the school district and the Department of Public Works. The study will cost $63,660. The cost will be shouldered 60% by impact fees and 40% by remaining uncommitted American Rescue Plan Act funds, which must be spent by the end of 2026.

Interim Superintendent Bob Champlin said the school district would be supportive of the study and said the district used about $100,000 in impact fees to set up the new playground at Pleasant Street School.

“We did have a conversation and I think we are fully supportive,” Champlin said. “At the same time, I’m in interim for about 5 minutes here and we have a school board. I would want to bring it to the school board. We’ve already talked about it conceptually and I had a conversation with the budget personnel chair about impact fees today.”

Champlin said district personnel agree using impact fees to fund the study would be prudent.

“So conceptually, all in with the city manager, and at the same time, seven people sort of tell me what to do so I need to bring it to them,” he said. 

Ward 3 Councilor Eric Hoffman said other schools in the city may have similar traffic issues and they should be looked at as well.

“I’m not sure about Woodland Heights but at Pleasant Street School as well, there are traffic issues at certain times of day,” Hoffman said. “I think it’s just a concern when it's 20 minutes of cars just sitting in the street, you can’t get through — I don’t think it’s as severe as Elm Street — maybe once this study has gone through, we might want to take a look and make sure the same issue isn’t happening at the other schools.”