The city of Arnold has changed the time when left turns from Tenbrook Road into the Walgreens’ parking lot or from the parking lot onto Tenbrook Road are not allowed in the morning when schools are in session.
The Walgreens pharmacy is at 776 Jeffco Blvd. across the street from the Fox C-6 School District campus that houses the Fox High, Fox Middle and Fox Elementary schools, as well as the Bridges Alternative School.
City Council members voted unanimously Dec. 16 to change the turn restriction from 6:30-8:30 a.m. The city previously restricted left turns from the road and parking lot from 7-9 a.m. Left turns still are not allowed from 2-5 p.m. on school days.
“It (the change) is because school is starting earlier now, and we have school traffic going through there before 7 a.m.,” City Administrator Bryan Richison said of the morning adjustment.
Fox High and Fox Middle begin the school day at 7 a.m., and Fox Elementary starts classes at 8:10 a.m.
Before this school year, the high school and middle school began classes at 7:20 a.m., and the elementary school started classes at 8:40 a.m.
“The whole reason we (put in the turn restriction) is because cars stack up during the school start and end times, making that turn very dangerous,” Richison said.
There are two westbound lanes from Tenbrook Road toward Jeffco Boulevard that connect to the Walgreens parking lot entrance and exit, and one eastbound lane on Tenbrook Road.
Vehicles make a left turn from the eastbound lane to get into the parking lot, and when there is heavy traffic, vehicles tend to back up in the lane dedicated to making a left turn from Tenbrook Road to Jeffco Boulevard. However, the westbound lane that leads to a dedicated right turn from Tenbrook Road to Jeffco Boulevard rarely has vehicles backed up during school hours, Richison said.
“When traffic stops to allow someone to make a left turn into Walgreens, the person making the left cannot see if the right lane, which may not have cars stacked up, is clear to safely make the turn,” he said. “People try to be nice and leave a gap, but that is not happening in the other lane because they don’t see someone trying to make the left from the road into Walgreens.”
Richison said the city has not considered banning all left turns at the Walgreens’ entrance and exit on Tenbrook Road.
“If we start to see an increase in accidents, we may revisit it,” he said. “The accidents we had seen were during school start and end times. We didn’t see many accidents outside of those hours.”