This south Charlotte road is ‘too dangerous’ for a school crossing guard
Crossing Tyvola Road to get to Collinswood Language Academy isn’t for the faint of heart.
To the right, a slight curve challenges pedestrians’ view.
To the left, drivers pay no mind to a flashing beacon announcing the school zone, said Gerardo Sandoval, a parent of a student at the south Charlotte magnet school.
And from both directions, a steady flow of traffic hovers above the speed limit.
“If you are on the north side of Tyvola, it becomes a bit of a Frogger situation,” Sandoval said. “You don’t really have a safe way to cross Tyvola.”
That could soon change.
The Collinswood Parent Teacher Association has spent years pushing the city to install safety infrastructure so children can commute by bike or foot. Officials with Mecklenburg County, Charlotte-Mecklenburg Schools and the Charlotte Department of Transportation were in agreement that the road was “too dangerous” for a crossing guard, the county said in a statement. And CDOT determined it was not traversed by pedestrians enough to warrant new infrastructure.
Their quest for safety took an apparent turn last month when, in a reversal, the city recommended a signalized crosswalk near the school. Design is already underway, with transportation officials reviewing potential locations for the signal.
Charlotte expects to learn more about construction requirements by mid-July, according to a statement from city spokesperson Jack VanderToll.
Parents would like to see additional improvements in the future to address bus lot and carpool problems, and they wish the lead time wasn’t so long, said Harry Carawan, the PTA advocacy chair.
But they’re grateful to see signs of progress, he said.
“We want to get our children outside and exercising and walking to the extent that we can,” Carawan said. “There are families that would walk, students that would walk, if it were possible, and this seems like a pretty reasonable ask.”
‘Catch 22’ left pedestrians unprotected on Tyvola Road
Collinswood is a K-8 school that teaches students both English and Spanish. The school moved to its current location off Tyvola Road in 2020 and sits in a stretch where parents say there’s too much distance between stop signs and traffic lights.
Few attempt to cross the road in its current state. That’s a large reason why the city has taken so long to act.
When CDOT officials scoped out the area, they didn’t see any pedestrians walking along either side of Tyvola Road near Collinswood during drop-off or pick-up times, the city said in a statement.
That logic frustrated some families who wish they were in a position to walk.
“It’s sort of a catch 22,” said Tina O’Brien, whose family lives within walking distance. Her kids ride the bus. “The city is saying we need to see more families doing it or trying. We can’t really do it until it’s safe enough.”
O’Brien bikes to work a few times a month and wishes her kids could do the same, especially on nice days, she said.
“The recurring theme is just resources and funding and having the ability to pay for infrastructure improvements,” Carawan said. “For a time, CDOT really was on the fence around what, if anything, could be done.”
In 2024 CDOT added s-curve warning signs, refreshed lane markings on the pavement and stop bars on the side streets, according to one email between a parent and a city project engineer. It stopped short of a crosswalk.
Charlotte changed course and recommended a beacon after CDOT met with parents and learned the principal had recommended students not walk to school, the city said. The new project would install flashing red lights that signal drivers to stop when a pedestrian needs to cross.
What’s next for Collinswood Language Academy safety
While parents wait for an update on the city’s crosswalk design this summer, they already have their eye on the next problem: a stop light or other beacon to allow buses to exit the lot with protection.
Videos show that, under the current setup, one bus must pull out to stop a heavy flow of traffic and allow the line of others to follow all at once.
The PTA has proposed a few solutions to CDOT so far, like installing a property stoplight or extending the roads behind the school. Officials haven’t seemed to bite just yet.
“I guess I would describe this as a partial fix,” Carawan said. “There’s a, from our perspective, real safety issue with the bus ingress and egress from the campus, but there doesn’t seem to be any kinda serious movement around addressing that.”
