HomeMy WebLinkAbout09-03-19 Public Comment - J. Laird - Cottonwood Road Construction Plan Julie Laird
152 Thatch Wood Lane
Bozeman, MT 59718
31st August 2019
Bozeman City Commissioners
PO Box 1230
Bozeman, MT 59771
Dear Commissioners,
As a brand-new family to Montana (Four Corners) and also one of the newest additions to the Petra community, we were incognizant of the
roadway construction near our new school, Petra Academy. Admittedly, I only became aware of the delays when making my first run to Petra.
However, as I understand now, the city has plans for reducing vehicle access to the school by surrendering an existent left turn into Classical Way
for an alternative left turning point (per state mandated civic engineering standards?). And so, with this, I feel it’s incumbent on me to express
some personal feelings, which may also be shared by other school parents.
During my first run, and before even reaching Cottonwood from the west end, my first concerns raced toward, not getting my children to Petra, but
rather retrieving my children from Petra. I quickly wondered how many permanent access points were already laid to the school. As parents, we
intuitively and constantly consider reasons we may need to reach our children in an emergency. In honesty, I was a little disconcerted to learn that
the number of entry ways for reaching students are few in number already. And the knowledge of even further reducing our ability to access our
children only heightens my concerns.
From a parent’s perspective, our children are our (and Bozeman’s) most precious commodity, and I believe all efforts should be made to maximize
access to our children from all directions. The morning commutes can typically be planned out ahead of time; however, external factors can
quickly become somewhat out of our hands once our children have been ‘handed over.’ And in a predicament, it is our children we need to reach
most safely and quickly, precluding any other transportation necessities in the surrounding area (barring those needed to access scenes of injurious
accidents).
With these feelings, and consequently, I ask (and ask on behalf of other parents) that multi-directional access to the children be retained and not
sacrificed. I ask that our children be taken as a priority over of the alternative access (left turning) currently in the works. Thank you so very much
for your time and consideration.
Sincerely,
Julie Laird