(haipo) - Problematic transportation and lacking safety conditions around educational institutions in Haifa - a topic that comes up a lot in public discourse, especially with the return of students from summer vacation and the start of the school year
According to data collected in the years 2019-2024 - 382 students were injured with various degrees of injury, in the vicinity of 22 schools in Haifa. This is an alarming statistic that keeps many parents and residents awake.
The extent of the injuries is alarming
The data indicate an alarming scale in cases of student injuries in the vicinity of educational institutions in the city. Among the schools where more than ten incidents took place: Achava School (32 minor injuries), Carmel High School (23 minor injuries), and the Italian Nuns School (23 minor injuries). Also, in institutions such as Talmud Torah Torat Emet and Hasidic institutions in Belza, there were also seriously injured.
The schools and number of injured:
- Ahava - 32 lightly wounded.
- Carmel High School - 23 slightly injured.
- Italian nuns - 23 slightly wounded.
- Arab Orthodox - 23 slightly wounded.
- Hivar - 22 lightly wounded.
- Shlava - 22 lightly injured.
- Alkarma - 19 slightly injured.
- Zichron Meir Talmud Torah - 19 lightly wounded, 1 seriously.
- Ol'panat Tzvia - 18 lightly injured, 1 seriously.
- Talmud Torah Torat Emet - 16 lightly wounded, 2 seriously.
- Tradition of Israel Talmud Torah - 15 lightly injured, 1 seriously.
- Hassidic institutions in Belza - 15 lightly injured, 2 seriously.
- Dror - 15 slightly injured.
- Leo Bek Hadar - 14 lightly wounded, 1 seriously.
- Morsheth Torah Talmud Torah - 13 lightly injured 1 seriously.
- Netivot Moshe Talmud Torah - 13 lightly injured.
- Rambam - 12 wounded, 1 minor and XNUMX serious.
- Jezreeliya - 12 lightly wounded, 1 seriously.
- Orim special education - 9 lightly injured, 2 seriously.
- Tel Hai - 11 slightly injured.
- Beit Malka - 11 lightly injured, 1 seriously.
- Reut High School for the Arts - 9 lightly injured, 2 seriously.
Immediate steps
The Hadash faction in the Haifa municipality began working together with professional parties to address the transportation and safety issues around educational institutions. Raja Zaatara, the faction's chairman, told Lahi Fa, Because immediate steps are required in the short and medium term to ensure the safety of the students. Among the proposed solutions: placing increased signage and safety measures, banning the entry of trucks in the morning hours, and expanding the "Weapon and Travel" project in Arab schools, including in the church schools.
Alleviating congestion, improving infrastructure
In addition, the faction promotes long-term plans for the establishment of new schools, in order to alleviate the overcrowding in educational institutions in busy neighborhoods, such as Abbas, Wadi Nisnas and the German colony. Also, the faction demands the improvement of the public transport infrastructure in the old neighborhoods, with the aim of reducing the pressure on the roads near the educational institutions.
"kiss and ride"
The "Weapon and Travel" project, which is designed to ease traffic congestion around schools and ensure the safety of students, has been operating in Israel since 2004. However, in Haifa there are schools where the project has already been implemented, but the results on the ground are only partially satisfactory.
For example, in the vicinity of the real school on Derech Hayam Street, where the project is being implemented, its effectiveness is questionable, at least in the way it is actually conducted. In the morning, when parents bring their children to school, as well as at the end of school, the chaos is celebrated. Parents block the road with their cars or step on the sidewalks and thus endanger the pedestrians, who find themselves maneuvering between the cars or forced to get off the road in order to cross.
A similar situation also exists at the Einstein school, where the "Weapon and Travel" project is also operating, and yet, every morning there is a traffic mess around the school that clearly needs to be addressed.
Parents in Haifa are calling on the municipality and the authorized parties to take significant and immediate actions that will improve the level of safety around the educational institutions - the opening of the school year is an opportunity to remind the need for this, and one hour earlier is fine.
The municipality of Haifa said to Haifa:The Municipality of Haifa invests many efforts and resources to increase road safety among children and teenagers in general and in school areas in particular. The activity focuses on both the infrastructural level and the educational and explanatory level. The improvement of the infrastructure is carried out on the basis of safety surveys carried out around all educational institutions in the city once a year and conducted before the start of the school year, as well as, resident inquiries and data collected at the initiative of the municipality in order to locate dangerous road sections and intersections in the city.
The data includes information related to, among other things: driving speeds, traffic accidents and analysis of their causes, the amount and type of vehicles traveling in the area, the intensity of the lighting, visibility ranges, the quality of the sidewalks and roads, traffic signs, road markings, and more. Based on all of these, the municipality is working to improve road safety, among other things, with the help of geometric changes to slow down and curb traffic, traffic signs, renewal of road markings and other measures such as "demand buttons" installed at signalized crossings to promote the green light for pedestrians.
At the same time, the municipal headquarters for road safety conducts educational and informational activities adapted to the different age groups in the educational institutions. The activities include, among other things, concentrated study days, tutorials, experiential experience in simulators and urban training grounds, educational activities in summer camps and schools during the Great Holiday for elementary students, and experiential and controlled training and experiences in driving in extreme situations for high school students.
In addition, the municipal safety headquarters conducts unique information campaigns for teenagers and young drivers in preparation for the start of the school year, holidays and other events such as New Year's Eve, Purim parties, etc.
The Municipality of Haifa sees great importance and encourages the "Weapon and Travel" activity, which is led by the "Weapon and Travel" association through the committees of parents who wish to take part in this important initiative. As part of the project, the municipality provides safety measures for the volunteer parents who report every day at a designated place that is marked and patrolled, located near the entrance of the school, direct the instructors and direct the driving parents and help the children get out of the car and reach the sidewalk safely, and allow the parents' cars to continue on their way.
This is an important and welcome project that increases the safety of the students on their way to school, saves the parents the time required to park the car, get out of it and drop off the child, and as a result, prevents traffic jams near the school.
In the past year, 41 schools throughout the city took part in Neskh and Sae projects.
At school, the gates are closed in the morning. The children are lying on the sidewalks and walking around the entrance to Elisha Hospital. No one is watching because a Torah teacher is sitting idly in the yard.
I hope the parents don't operate in "download and go". Hoping everything will be fine. There is a guard "that's how it is"
The entrances to the schools in Kareliazer Dror Vibnyali are also from the direction of the road. Something that is a danger to children and a nuisance to drivers during the hours of dropping off and picking up children. Inviting the officials in the municipality to reschedule the meeting did not help
until disaster strikes
The municipality should invest efforts in closing streets to private vehicles near the schools and turning streets into traffic-free streets by replacing the asphalt with bricks and creating a curved road that will require vehicles to slow down.
As a matter of fact, when you go around other cities, they apply it to all the new public buildings, among the few that do nothing in new or existing buildings is the Haifa municipality.
For example, on Zedekahou Street at the entrance to the Herzl school, instead of letting vehicles enter the part of the street up to the school's entrance, then doing a dangerous reverse, and not once, quite miraculously, did they reverse and run over children crossing the sidewalk at the corner of Boaz-Zedekihou Street
So this part could be closed to traffic and turned into a square that was only accessible to fire and rescue vehicles and a drop-off platform for students in the roundabout itself.
And instead of parents having to drive from Kabirim, they proposed to make a bridge to the school from the cave path street.
But Haifa Municipality is not doing anything!!
The municipality does nothing to improve road conditions for young pedestrians. Why don't they mention the access to the construction sites for example. Loaded with cars and trucks