When the school bell rings Monday students at Millard North will arrive to find construction work around 144th and Pacific is still ongoing. That's going to create traffic and safety issues for students and parents.
But there has been a lot of progress made on the project since last spring. "When the spring construction had started, there were times when we had one lane going one direction or the other. We're going to have both lanes, two lanes, open each direction on 144th street," developer Jay Noddle says.
School principal Brian Begley encourages students and parents, especially new drivers, to come up to the campus this weekend to "familiarize themselves with the new arrows, new flow and the new pathways within our campus."
Omaha Police says four officers will be used for traffic control for the first week or two of the school year. “Because of the unique circumstances surrounding the construction project at Millard North, this is not unusual. We do get requests from other schools for traffic control but they have to understand too that we have a limited number of resources that we can apply," says Omaha Police, Lt. John Sokolnik.
Millard Superintendent Dr. Jim Sutfin is urging students that walk east to get to the school to use the new trail on the south side of Pacific Street and not to jaywalk through the construction area. "Kids please and parents, walk around the south side come across at the lighted intersection, it'll keep everybody safe."
Noddle says they are doing what they can this weekend to make the area even safer. "We're going to work over the weekend to continue clean the site up and minimize the number of barricades that are in and around the property so it's not as confusing as it might be today."
Only freshman will be attending school on Monday. Tuesday will be more of a concern. That's when more than 2,500 students will be showing up and adding to the congestion concerns. Noddle says the work is scheduled to be wrapped up sometime in October.