Representatives from Rochester-based LaBella Associates presented a plan to the Dansville Board of Education last week regarding permanently fixing potential safety hazards within the school district’s parking lot and bus loop as well as upgrading the district's more than decade-old technology infrastructure.
The parking area has been a concern for the board for several months, and this summer, a temporary solution was put in place to ease those concerns.
"The new parking lot should permit greater safety for pedestrians and passenger vehicles with improved drop off zones and traffic patterns," Superintendent Paul Alioto said.
LaBella architects Tim Webber and Dan Pieters presented the design during the board's regular session Oct. 9.
Included in the design features are making the current public entrance on the southside of the parking lot for buses only. A centralized public entrance and exit would be built off state Route 63, pending state Department of Transportation approval. Parking lines would be changed from facing an east-west direction to a north-south direction so that pedestrians would not have to walk between parked cars, but could walk in sight of and in the flow of traffic and down isles.
Parent drop-off points and pedestrian cross walks would remain where they are now, and more permanent landscaping and timber guardrails would be installed between the parking lot and bus loop.
In addition, the primary school and business office parking lot would be extended to accomodate more cars, and a circular primary school drop off point would be added in front of the school via an extension off the primary school parking lot.
A new parking area would be built behind the elementary school, extended off North Clinton Street; and a new sidewalk would be built from that parking lot to the elementary school.
Overall, an additional 50 parking spaces are proposed for the campus, totalling 461. This is to help alleviate parking lost when the middle school building closed last year.
In addition to the parking lot redesign, the capital project proposal includes upgrading the district’s 12-year-old CAT 5 cabling systerm for its internet and DSL infrastructure.
"We need to replace that and upgrade it with a thicker cable that can transfer more data more quickly," Alioto said.
He explained that the current infrastructure will not hold the bandwidth for upcoming web-based programs required for state testing and for general classroom uses.
Representatives from Rochester-based LaBella Associates presented a plan to the Dansville Board of Education last week regarding permanently fixing potential safety hazards within the school district’s parking lot and bus loop as well as upgrading the district's more than decade-old technology infrastructure.
The parking area has been a concern for the board for several months, and this summer, a temporary solution was put in place to ease those concerns.
"The new parking lot should permit greater safety for pedestrians and passenger vehicles with improved drop off zones and traffic patterns," Superintendent Paul Alioto said.
LaBella architects Tim Webber and Dan Pieters presented the design during the board's regular session Oct. 9.
Included in the design features are making the current public entrance on the southside of the parking lot for buses only. A centralized public entrance and exit would be built off state Route 63, pending state Department of Transportation approval. Parking lines would be changed from facing an east-west direction to a north-south direction so that pedestrians would not have to walk between parked cars, but could walk in sight of and in the flow of traffic and down isles.
Parent drop-off points and pedestrian cross walks would remain where they are now, and more permanent landscaping and timber guardrails would be installed between the parking lot and bus loop.
In addition, the primary school and business office parking lot would be extended to accomodate more cars, and a circular primary school drop off point would be added in front of the school via an extension off the primary school parking lot.
A new parking area would be built behind the elementary school, extended off North Clinton Street; and a new sidewalk would be built from that parking lot to the elementary school.
Overall, an additional 50 parking spaces are proposed for the campus, totalling 461. This is to help alleviate parking lost when the middle school building closed last year.
In addition to the parking lot redesign, the capital project proposal includes upgrading the district’s 12-year-old CAT 5 cabling systerm for its internet and DSL infrastructure.
"We need to replace that and upgrade it with a thicker cable that can transfer more data more quickly," Alioto said.
He explained that the current infrastructure will not hold the bandwidth for upcoming web-based programs required for state testing and for general classroom uses.
"With all this digital information, we need a backup system to be housed in a separate location," Alioto said. "Our backup would be housed in the middle school building, in one of the server rooms there. So we're talking about servers, switches and cabling."
The technology upgrades alone would cost the district a little more than $1 million. The price tag for the entire capital project is $5.125 million. Alioto wants to assure the public that there will be no tax impact for this project.
New York state will chip in 90 percent of the cost, while the remaining 10 percent – a little more than a half million dollars – will come straight out of the district’s reserves.
If the board approves to move forward with this project, expected at its next meeting, the public will vote in December. If the public approves, work is expected to be conducted this summer. The district is planning on releasing more information on this project to the public within the next month or two.
