A school bus carrying 39 high school students was involved in an accident at the intersection of Martini Drive and Manchester Road, according to a letter sent to parents on Wednesday from Maplewood Richmond Heights superintendent, Karen Hall.
The accident occurred Wednesday at approximately 7:55 a.m.
While traveling southbound on Martini Drive and beginning to turn west onto Manchester Road, the rear of the bus was hit by a truck and trailer that was pulling into the QuikTrip parking lot. QuikTrip opened last Thursday.
No one was harmed in the accident, though the bus was slightly damaged. The students were going to summer school at Brentwood High School.
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While the school district investigates the accident with the Maplewood Police Department, the bus drop-off and pick-up will be moved back to the location used during the QuikTrip construction, along Lohmeyer Avenue, until the school can be assured of the safety of Martini Drive, Hall’s letter states.
“This new increase of vehicular traffic and congestion around our middle and high school campus causes us concern for our students,” Hall states in the letter.
I am stunned that a parent would vote for a commercial interest against the interest of school and child safety, simply because a campaign left a “sour taste.” This helps me understand how the QT was voted in in the first place, which initially left me dumbfounded. I think the bottom line is what Charlene and others have said; QT does not own the street. Or at least they didn’t, it appears now they do. And I have to wonder what else they will demand from Maplewood… and receive.
A few minutes ago I turned in and out of that particular intersection. I’m pretty sure it’s wider than before and it definitely has better sightlines.
It seems as if there’s some people in this community who are determined to blame everything that happens in that area on the new tenants, whether there’s any link to reality or not.
I’m pretty sure I know who to blame now if my allergies act up or a dog uses my yard as a toilet.
Jane,
To respond briefly, I took issue with teachers trying to influence voting decisions through students. I have no problem with parents putting their objections out there.
Also, if Deer Creek is such a valuable piece of commercial property, wouldn’t Big Bend/Manchester also be valuable?
It baffles me that voting citizens of Maplewood and the city council seemed to ignore the potential problems for safety on Martini drive when approving the Quik Trip’s relocation, and now that it’s done, continue to use 20-20 hindsight to suggest that the school board and school officials were the ones who needed to prepare and plan for what one commenter rightly named “the coopting” of a city street for commercial purposes. I sincerely hope that Quik Trip is paying the school district for the damage to the bus, and that they are proactive on making a solution to this problem that doesn’t involve more accomodation by our students than has already taken place.
I fail to see how this is QT’s fault.
There is nothing in this story, nor in the letter from the district (which I have) nor in the account that I was given from someone involved, that indicates QT should be compensating the district.
In the shadow of the busiest intersection in Maplewood two cumbersome vehicles had a minor incident. Let’s all calm down. I would say that it may be a wise idea to use the newly created right turn lane with a signal 30 yards to the east of this incident as the primary method of going west on Manchester.
I love Quik Trip and am glad they moved, but school and student safely must come first and at nearly all costs. it is quite unfortunate this happened but thankfully no injuries ensued.
Let’s come up with a plan to make this work for both the school and QT, but again, student safety must come first.
The school was here first and the safety of the students is what matters. It should just be limited for school use only
School bases should not use martini drive as a drive through. This is a commercial business now and not a street.
So, in essence, you’re saying that a private business gets to co-op an entire city street? It appears that is what the city council has allowed Quiktrip to do.
Were the members of the school board and district administrators putting student safety first when they decided it was best to spend substantial dollars on various additions and renovations to MRH High/Middle in recent years, knowing the facility is situated at a busy intersection?
Did they explore building at another location or acquiring adjoining properties? These are expensive options, but I have never voted against a school bond issue.
You’re kidding, right? I doubt there are any districts in the country that could afford to re-locate from a fully functional school building of that size to another place altogether, school bond or not. And what acquisition of adjoining properties would have made this intersection safer? I’m presuming you mean the corner itself, which as we learned during the Quiktrip debate was most definitely not for sale. Ask Dan Lesseg and the owners.
I am incredulous that you are somehow placing the blame for a lapse in safety on the school board and its administrators. That’s some creative re-writing of history! You do recall that they were adamantly against the Quiktrip move precisely on the grounds that it would be unsafe for students? Well, it turns out they were right. And barring the use of eminent domain, which sadly most cities choose to use to help businesses and not to further the public good, they couldn’t have bought the corner, even if they could have afforded it (which of course they couldn’t).
Please tell us where there is a very large, available piece of property that is not near a busy intersection within the boundaries of the Maplewood-Richmond Heights School District.
Are you and “No thanks” part of a stealth QT defensive PR campaign?
No. I am a parent who has been a lifelong proponent of public education but does not take the wisdom and foresight of those in charge of public schools for granted.
So the district saw the need and obtained the money to build a new elementary school (in a quieter location than the HS/MS), expand/renovate the ECC and expand/renovate the HS/MS, but was helpless to address the threat of busy traffic and commercial activity to student safety? Sure, addressing it would have been costly, but if the threat was great enough (and has been for years, apparently, as Big Bend and Manchester has been a busy intersection for a long time), the board and administrators should have said so and asked for the resources necessary to address it. I would have supported it.
What the district did was have my children’s teachers tell them to go home and tell us the new QT would be dangerous and ask us to not to support it. I didn’t want it there-I liked it where it was. But the “campaign” left a sour taste in my mouth and I voted to allow the project to proceed.
By the way, wouldn’t the site of the Deer Creek Shopping Center (pre-redevelopment) have been a large enough site and allowed better controlled access for buses and cars than the current site? Food for thought. And has the HS/MS been “fully functional” for all of the last 20 years? Given the amount of work put into it, I have to wonder. Wasn’t the former Greenwood Elementary torn down 10 years ago when the new elementary was built?
It is possible for someone to believe in the cause while disagreeing with one decision/position. If you think I’m “stealth PR” or, god forbid, a Republican/conservative, I’m not. I just have a different view of this.
jjhochunk – I respect your view of how the Quiktrip controversy unfolded, though I don’t agree with it. I found the forthright campaign of the Mayor, the City Council and Dan Lesseg (on behalf of the property owners) to be far more distasteful than anything that came out of the office of the MRH school district. I would be careful not to conflate what teachers did or did not do or Tonya Powell for that matter with the school board itself.
You won’t get any disagreement from me that some of the decisions the school district has made over the past 20 years have been short sighted (like selling A.B. Green), but I still don’t think your point about renovations has anything to do with the possibility of wholesale relocation from its flagship school. This is extremely difficult and far beyond what the district could ever afford. That you would even suggest that they could buy Deer Creek shows how out of touch you really are about what commercial properties cost. It’s great that you support the district and vote for bonds, but you have to embrace the reality, namely that for better or for worse, the MRH schools are stuck with the properties that they currently still own. It was prudent of them to renovate and modernize what they already had. I wouldn’t conclude that the property wasn’t functional just because it had to be renovated. Anyone who owns a home knows that even solid investments have to be changed and reworked from time to time.
And besides, how can you not see that the district has been trying to address the issue of safety? It’s almost like you discount any efforts, since they cannot afford to do the pie in the sky solution, which in your mind is to move the school entirely.
The only possible place that I could imagine would be to revert Ryan Hummert Park back to a school (oh, how I wish we hadn’t torn it down in the first place!), but I imagine losing that green space would be extremely unpopular. I’m not even sure how that kind of thing works. Way back in the day did the school district sell the land to the city of Maplewood and would have to buy it back?
Martini Drive is a STREET – Should Big Bend be closed down because it is next to a business….I believe you misunderstand…Martini Drive is not a commercial business…but a street – It was closed down during the construction….Quik Trip does not own…the street