Northwest Fresno school area gets county's first HAWK crosswalk

FRESNO, Calif. (KFSN) -- A caller high-intensity activated crosswalk is present operating successful northwest Fresno, aiming to amended pedestrian information adjacent an simple school.

City and region officials, on with the Central Unified School District, gathered Wednesday greeting to observe the activation of the county's archetypal high-intensity activated crosswalk, commonly known arsenic a HAWK signal.

The crosswalk is located connected Grantland Avenue adjacent Herndon-Barstow Elementary School and is the county's archetypal HAWK crosswalk. It starts flashing lights up supra to fto cars cognize to dilatory down and hold for students crossing.

The HAWK awesome is designed to alert drivers arsenic pedestrians transverse a engaged roadway. When a pedestrian presses the button, the awesome cycles done flashing yellow, dependable yellowish and past reddish lights, informing drivers to dilatory down and stop. When the manus awesome begins flashing, the reddish lights flash arsenic well, indicating drivers whitethorn proceed if the crosswalk is clear.

City of Fresno Councilmember Mike Karbassi said the extremity is to marque drivers much alert of children crossing a large thoroughfare.

"Well, what happens erstwhile you spot flashing reddish lights connected the backmost of a schoolhouse bus? People cognize to halt due to the fact that there's children. Grantland is simply a large thoroughfare but there's a schoolhouse close crossed the street," Karbassi said. "We privation radical to cognize erstwhile the kids deed that fastener the light's gonna flash intensely. Stop. There are kids crossing the street. Get disconnected your phone. Pay attention. Don't marque that kid a victim.

The awesome operates astatine each hours, adjacent connected weekends.

The task follows years of concerns raised by parents and schoolhouse officials astir information successful the area, peculiarly during highest schoolhouse hours and challenging upwind conditions.

"During our engaged time, it's highly unsafe and during foggy days it's scary arsenic well," said Herndon-Barstow Elementary School Principal Paul Marashian.

Parent Elisa Bilios pointed to erstwhile incidents adjacent the erstwhile crosswalk location.

"There person been aggregate accidents successful this vicinity. The PG&E rod close wherever the erstwhile crosswalk was located was downed connected abstracted occasions by cars crashing into it causing electrical outages that affected schoolhouse acquisition days," Bilios said.

The task was completed astatine the extremity of March and outgo astir 1 cardinal dollars.

"Our kids are important and however they transverse the streets matter," different genitor said.