School principal urges council to fast-track crosswalk after near miss at Franklin Elementary

Grant Plumb, principal at Franklin Elementary School, told the Moline City Council he brought video of a near miss involving a kindergartner and urged the city to install a crosswalk and traffic controls near the school.

Plumb described a pocket neighborhood of about 30 homes east of 54th Street and said students cross without a marked crosswalk or continuous sidewalk. He told the council he has contacted the Moline Police Department and traffic-control staff and asked the council to fast-track sidewalk and crosswalk work so school patrols can safely escort kindergarten through fifth-grade students.

"If you guys can help me get a crosswalk installed and kind of accelerate that timeline so that there's a sidewalk there," Plumb said, adding he would welcome a three-way stop at 54th and 11th Avenue C with a crosswalk to solve the problem.

Plumb said temporary measures offered by the district or facilities staff have not resolved the safety risk and that adding signage without connecting sidewalks can move the hazard rather than fix it. He asked the council to ‘‘shake some trees’’ and use the city’s authority to move the project forward.

The mayor indicated the alderperson for the area, Dan McNeal, would be made aware and that there would be follow-up; council members confirmed staff would collect Plumb’s materials. The council did not take formal action during the meeting. The mayor said contact information would be routed through the school district so staff can follow up.

Next steps: the council will route Plumb’s request to the appropriate public-works and traffic staff and alderperson Dan McNeal, who was identified at the meeting as the representative for the area. No timeline for construction or an explicit funding source was specified at the meeting.