Swampscott school building board hires traffic consultant

SWAMPSCOTT – In response to traffic woes from Forest Avenue neighbors over the proposed elementary school, the School Building Committee has hired a traffic consultant who will make a report to the community Wednesday.Committee member Glenn Paster said GOED Consulting was hired immediately after the last public forum, where a discussion of adding a district-wide elementary school to the Swampscott Middle School site was dominated by traffic concerns. Neighbors worried about the ramifications of 600 more students and their parents traveling to and from the sites twice a day.?We want the entire community on board with this, and the community wanted more information regarding traffic and we listened,” said Paster.Paster said GOED is well-known in the Northeast for its work with transportation surveying with cities and colleges.GOED has been working with the committee to develop what Paster called a “full-blown traffic study,” and it will present its findings to the committee at its Tuesday meeting before the public forum Wednesday at 7 p.m. at Swampscott High School.?There will be traffic, and there?s not much we can do about that, but we want to see what they can do with it,” said Paster about GOED.Paster said the traffic study is just one more step in communicating plans to the town to get everyone on board with a new, district-wide elementary school so the plan can be approved at a Special Town Meeting in the fall. The plan was originally set for the annual Town Meeting warrant next week, but the committee opted for more time to educate voters.?The more educated people are about this, the better,” said Paster. “When it comes down to what?s educationally best for young kids in town, our educators say, without a shadow of a doubt, district-wide is the way to go.”Paster said as far as drainage concerns from Forest Avenue residents, flood mitigation will be taken care of during the building of a new school.To find out more about GOED and its completed projects, go to http://www.geodcorp.com/consulting/transportation.htm.