□ Intern reporter Bai Yao reporter Tang Bing
"Once you get to and from school, this road can't be walked, it's very blocked." "There are too many parents picking up and dropping off their children, and the surrounding streets are full of people, making it difficult for pedestrians to pass." ...... Near 6 p.m. on October 18, on the sidewalk in front of the Big Wild Goose Pagoda Primary School on Cuihua Road, Yanta District, Xi'an City, there were parents picking up their children from school; the non-motorized road was also crowded, full of bicycles, electric vehicles, and motorcycles, and pedestrians could only walk through the cracks. At this time, there are still many private cars parked on the surrounding roads.
Such a "busy traffic" situation also appeared in front of schools such as the Affiliated Primary School of Xi'an Jiaotong University, the Jixiang Road Primary School, the South University Road Primary School, the Qujiang No. 2 Primary School on Yanxiang Road, and the Jingkai First School on Mingguang Road on the southern section of Zhuque Avenue.
"Road congestion in front of schools is a perpetual and pervasive problem, and as the number of vehicles in the city continues to increase, congestion will become more and more serious." Zhou Huaizhong, member of the Provincial Committee of the Chinese People's Political Consultative Conference and chairman of Shaanxi Huashang Cultural Industry Investment Co., Ltd., said.
How to solve the problem of blocking the school door? At this year's provincial two sessions, Zhou Huaizhong submitted the "Proposal on Comprehensive Management to Alleviate Traffic Road Congestion in Front of Primary and Secondary Schools in Xi'an". He believes that the comprehensive treatment of road congestion in front of schools should be raised to the important agenda of realizing smart city management.
"Like Cuihua Road, the distance of two or three kilometers from north to south has gathered many schools such as Cuihua Road Primary School, Big Wild Goose Pagoda Primary School, Xi'an No. 85 Middle School, Affiliated Middle School of Shaanxi Normal University, and Affiliated Primary School of Shaanxi Normal University, and most of the schools are large in scale and the layout is obviously unreasonable." Zhou Huaizhong believes that in the long run, only by rationally planning and laying out primary and secondary schools can we fundamentally solve the problem of traffic congestion in front of schools. At the same time, when planning, it is necessary to consider the actual situation of high-rise residential areas with high volume ratio and dense population, and when building new primary and secondary schools and kindergartens, it is necessary to meet the needs of citizens to "go to school nearby", reduce unnecessary parent pick-up and drop-off, and avoid crowds and traffic jams caused by the excessive size of the school.
The reporter also found in the field visit that many schools or close to the main traffic road, or close to the intersection, these sections of the road themselves have a large traffic flow, coupled with the students going to and from school crowds gathered, it is easy to cause traffic congestion.
To this end, Zhou Huaizhong suggested that the design of the school gate should fully consider the traffic situation of the street, try to avoid leaving the school gate near the intersection and the main traffic road, and the school with conditions can design two school gates or adjust the location of the entrance and exit of the school gate. At the same time, the location of the school that seriously affects road traffic should be transformed according to local conditions, and the greening and sidewalk area should be coordinated, and the traffic capacity should be given priority, and the overpass or underground passage can be increased to avoid traffic jams and safety hazards caused by pedestrians crossing the road for a long time.
In view of how to effectively solve the problem of random parking of vehicles at the school gate, Zhou Huaizhong believes that a special channel for pick-up and drop-off vehicles should be set up at the school gate, drawing a special logo, which can refer to a similar airport terminal method to monitor the entry and departure time of vehicles through probes, so as to stop and go, so as to avoid the long-term stay of pick-up vehicles and affect the normal passage of other passing vehicles; open more school buses, reduce parent pick-up and drop-off, and alleviate traffic pressure.
How to strengthen departmental supervision and school coordination? Zhou Huaizhong also suggested that in areas with large school scale and serious congestion on the road at the entrance, traffic police should be arranged to be on duty during the peak period of schooling, and in accordance with the management principle of combining leniency and severity, drivers who park for a long time or stop on and off people in the forbidden parking area and fast lane should be punished, and minor illegal acts should be promptly discouraged and corrected. Schools should also take advantage of opportunities such as parent-teacher meetings to educate and dissuade parents from complying with traffic order and minimize the impact of pick-up and drop-off vehicles on normal traffic. School security guards should assist in guiding traffic order at the school gate, and help parents to supervise and receive students in and out of the school gate.
"It is necessary to make full use of news media resources, increase publicity, advocate students to go to and from school on foot or by public transportation, and minimize parents from driving to and from senior students." Zhou Huaizhong said.
It is understood that before the start of the school year in the autumn of 2022, Xi'an will put into use 256 newly built, renovated and expanded compulsory education stage schools.
"New schools should take into account multiple factors such as campus location, safety for students to and from school, convenience of transportation, and vehicle parking, so as to avoid congestion from the source." Zhou Huaizhong pointed out.
The Xi'an Municipal Government said in the reply to the committee's proposal that in the future, it will actively promote the application of the underground connection system for primary and secondary schools, introduce the function of ground pick-up and drop-off children into the underground, reduce the occupation of surface road resources, alleviate traffic congestion around the school, and create a safe, convenient and efficient traffic environment for picking up and dropping off students.
In the next step, Xi'an will further optimize the planning and layout of the school, improve the municipal supporting facilities around the campus, increase the intensity of road upgrading and transformation, strengthen the comprehensive management of traffic order, adhere to the principle of "co-construction, co-governance and sharing", establish a "home, school, police" coordination and linkage mechanism, improve the level of fine traffic management, strictly investigate all kinds of traffic violations, and make every effort to eliminate traffic safety hazards and ensure a safe and orderly traffic environment around the campus.