Longfellow students get commitments for more traffic controls around school

It took a La Crosse’s city hall conference room packed with middle-schoolers this week to convince a city board more traffic controls could save lives.  

Seventh graders at Longfellow Middle School brought their research on traffic safety and hazards around the school to City Hall Monday.

Their message: We need some more stop signs, crosswalks — anything to make it safer around the school.

Using three months of research, the students got the city’s attention.

“We went outside and we watched them, and even if they saw a big group of kids, they didn’t slow down,” seventh grader Isabella Giese said. “And they were still on their phones.”

Giese is among the 7th grade students who presented their three month traffic study to the city’s Board of Public Works.  

“It’s very, sort of, eerie to try and cross them, because cars aren’t watching out for you,” Giese said. “A lot of them are on their phones. A lot of them are speeding.”

Students, teachers and parents have been after city hall for months to follow through on promises to deal with increasingly hazardous traffic conditions around the school.

The Board of Public Works agreed and improvements are on the way.

“We put a lot of work into what we’ve done,” seventh grader Isabella Giese said. “So, it’s nice to be moving forward in what we researched. It feels really good to have things being done.”