Alpine council members voted unanimously this week to create a reduced speed zone in front of the Mountainville Academy charter school on Main Street.

According to a staff memo to council members, Mountainville Academy petitioned the city earlier this year for a reduced-speed school zone on Main Street in front of the school, near 100 South.

The city hired an engineering company to determine whether a reduced speed zone was needed. The study came back with mixed results, recommending the city install flashing lights for a reduced speed zone near the school at a cost of $6,000 to $10,000. The study also recommended that the city increase speeds in front of the school from 30 mph to 35 mph because drivers routinely drive faster than the current limit.

"That being said, we recognize that there are several other factors that influence speed limits, not the least of which is public perception and the almost constant pressure to reduce speeds along streets," state WCEC Engineers Inc. in a memo to the city. "In light of all these factors, we recommend that the speed limit on this section of Main Street remain 30 mph and not any lower than 30 mph. If the speed limit were reduced to, say, 25 mph, it would not result in a significant change in vehicle speeds along Main Street."

Those instructions apparently did not include the school-zone speed reduction, which will only be in effect a few hours a day. Council members, in their vote, instructed city staff to follow the recommendations of the study.

Council members spoke of tweaking the recommendations, but city attorney David Church cautioned them against taking the recommendations into their own hands.

"If you have hired experts and they send their recommendations to you and you don't follow those, your liability is greatly increased," Church said. "You certainly don't want to ignore the experts you hired, because then your own experts can be used against you."

The study recommended creating a school zone from "just south of the school driveway on the south end to just north of the 120 South intersection on the north end," but then says the sheer volume of traffic in the morning and afternoon when parents are picking up children "creates a traffic calming effect" itself. In addition, "the speeds along Main Street adjacent to the school [at the roundabout] are already 20 miles per hour or less, and therefore a reduced speed school zone is probably not as necessary here as it may be in other locations, but when recommending traffic control measures near school zones, we tend to be conservative in our recommendations."

The study also recommended maintaining an existing crosswalk at 120 South and removing a crosswalk at 100 South in order to better focus pedestrian traffic. It also recommended that Mountainville Academy work with parents to encourage carpooling and to stagger arrival and departure times. Councilman Thomas Whitchurch said the school has spent time encouraging parents to do just that.

The study also recommended painting a 60-foot-long red zone in front of the school to increase visibility by removing some parking for cars.