School Board OKs New Crosswalk on Valley Vista Drive for Park Forest Middle School

State College Area School Board on Monday gave the go-ahead for a new crosswalk along Valley Vista Drive for Park Forest Middle School students.

The board approved a memorandum of understanding with Patton Township to complete the project after the district and township partnered on a successful state grant application to fund the crosswalk.

A crosswalk on Valley Vista Drive is periodically used by students to access athletic fields and tennis courts, but the flashing light system has not been functional for several years.

The state’s Automated Red Light Enforcement (ARLE) program awarded a grant of $108,964 for the project. Because school districts are not eligible for the program, which uses fines collected from red light violations at intersections in Philadelphia to fund traffic safety projects, the district partnered with Patton Township to apply for the grant, which was awarded in 2017.

Improvements to the crosswalk will include new school zone flashers, a rectangular rapid flashing beacon with signs and push buttons at each approach, detectable warning surfaces at the ends of the crosswalk, and high-visibility and high-reflectivity pavement markings.

As the recipient of the grant, Patton Township will disburse the funds to the district and the district will be responsible for completing the project.

The board approved hiring ELA Group, Inc., for engineering services and final design for the crosswalk at a fee of $14,600, which is $5,200 less than the amount allotted in the grant for engineering and design. ELA is engineer for the new traffic light along Westerly Parkway for State High.

Ed Poprik, district director of physical plant, said the plans for the crosswalk will be designed to integrate with the changes coming to Valley Vista Drive to construct new left turn lanes, for which work is just getting under way.

‘The crosswalk is being designed to work in harmony with the other work that is being planned for that road, which includes left turn lanes, some sidewalks and other things,’ Poprik said. ‘So it will be integrated. We’ll work with the township to make sure they work together. The timing of it is good and that’s partially what helped us get the grant… as an enhancement to those planned improvements.’