City eliminates a requirement for crossing guards
A crash that killed a 6year-old boy in Glen Hazel over the summer has prompted Pittsburgh officials to make a series of safety improvements, some of which will have an impact beyond that neighborhood.
Officials announced following a community meeting this month that in addition to other measures, it is no longer requiring crossing guards to have a driver’s license, an effort to bolster the declining number of guards and to increase the diversity pool.
In July, Jamel Austin, 6, was struck by a motorist in the 700 block of Johnston Avenue and later died. That had prompted calls for more safety improvements.
The city announced it is installing speed humps on Johnston and Glenwood avenues and on Mansion Street.
Signing and pavement marking improvements, including newly painted crosswalks and curb- painted bump-outs on those three streets, were also included as well as a flashing school zone sign at Propel School on Glenwood.
Power was also restored, and two lights on Rivermont Drive were fixed to provide increased lighting at night.
Aside from those local upgrades, the city said it is looking to hire more crossing guards, whose numbers have been dropping in recent years.
This month, an audit by City Controller Michael Lamb suggested a decline in the number of school
crossing guards over the past five years could pose a threat to public safety.
As of June, there were 61 crossing guards and one
guard supervisor, although the city budgeted for 82 crossing guards.
Since 2018, the number of guards budgeted by the city has steadily decreased from 104 to 82. However, the city never had a full crossing guard staff during those five years.
Another concern the audit found was that of the 61 crossing guards, 11 did not have current child abuse clearances and 12 did not have current criminal background checks, both of which are required by state law.
Between 2000 and 2022, the school student to crossing guard ratio has grown. In 2000, there was one guard for about 240 students. This year, it has grown to one guard for every 389 students.
The city doesn’t have an indicator for what would be a good ratio of guards to students, which the audit recommends it should identify.
One of the recommendations included in the audit was the city consider sharing the funding of these jobs with PPS and private schools within the city.
It also was found that crossing guards are one of the lowest-paid jobs within the Bureau of Administration in the Public Safety Department, and because the majority of the guards are women, it is contributing to the department’s gender pay gap.
“Increasing wages for school crossing guards would help alleviate the gender pay gap and help with hiring and retention,” the audit recommended.
The recent announcement by the mayor’s office did not specifically address any of those findings.
In a related announcement, the city’s Department of Mobility and Infrastructure announced it was installing speed humps on Kelly Street between La Schall and Collier streets in Homewood South.
Data collected in 2021 indicated that more than 50% of vehicles traveling on the street exceeded the posted speed limit of 25 mph, with 85th percentile speeds at or over 33 mph. “The rate of speeding along with crash history on the corridor indicated a strong need for traffic calming intervention,” the announcement said.
The project will include the construction of eight speed humps. Speed humps are midblock traffic calming devices that raise the entire wheelbase of a vehicle to reduce its speed. Permanent signage and pavement markings will be installed to alert motorists of approaching speed humps.
Speed humps have also been installed in recent years in the Squirrel Hill and Highland Park neighborhoods and are planned for Mount Washington, Stanton Heights and others.