Parents voice safety concerns over walking routes to Clifton Heights Middle School: "They promised busing"

Jessica Moyer has a binder with 30 pages' worth of signatures. She uses her barbershop of 30 years to lobby people about the busing situation for a small neighborhood on the southern tip of Drexel Hill.

"They promised busing," Moyer said of the Upper Darby School District. "And then decided that's not what they're doing."

The district's measurements and calculations place the Moyers just within the radius where busing is not offered.

The 1.5-mile rule is applied for all middle-schoolers in the massive school district, but the new middle school in Clifton Heights seems to pose challenges for walkers from the Upper Darby Township and Drexel Hill neighborhoods, where students have to navigate busy roadways, trolley tracks and the Darby Creek.

Parents said the district should make an exception to the policy because of the safety concerns.

"When I asked which would be safest for my 11-year-old daughter to walk, they told me to figure it out, which set me off," Moyer said.

Eva Althouse's son also treks on foot to the new school. She has concerns with his route of travel.

"Go right over the Lindbergh Bridge and up Baltimore Pike, which is all crazy," Althouse said. "That's mayhem."

She says he has boarded other buses farther from the middle school to avoid the obstacles and traffic-clogged roads. 

Darlene Coughlan was busy cutting hair but stopped a moment from her post at Moyer's Klip Joint to weigh in and give the directions. She offered what sounded like a complicated, meandering list of twists and turns.

"It's all the way down Burmont Road, then a right down Bridge Street, over the bridge, up Baltimore Pike, then up Springfield Road," Coughlan said. "It took her daughter an hour to get home the other day."

"None of those routes in my opinion are safe," Moyer said. 

There is another, more direct way. But parents say it's the worst option. 

"Or go over the river and through the woods," Moyer said.

We thought it was a joke at first, maybe a catchphrase. Nope. 

One option would be for the middle school children to take a path that goes right across the Darby Creek along some back trails. While it might be a direct shot and the fastest way, parents have even more safety concerns. They say they're leery mostly because it's isolated and there are no homes close by.

"If that's the route they expect our children to go, they need to maintain it, and they're not," Moyer said.

In a phone interview, Upper Darby Schools Superintendent Daniel McGarry acknowledged growing pains with getting the new middle school up and running.

McGarry was sympathetic to the parents' concerns.

"We are certainly open to continuing to look at transportation and refining things," McGarry said. "If there is a safety issue, we will try and get transportation for them."

While the district has its busing policy, these parents argue it should be subject to exceptions when circumstances such as safety measures apply. 

"Offer the kids a bus, just offer it to them," Moyer said.