Some residents on Paseo Presada and adjacent streets said they are tired of seeing their neighborhood lined up with the cars of parents trying to pick up and drop off their children at Challenger Kindergarten and Preschool located on Cox Avenue.

"It can get pretty chaotic in the mornings during the school year," observed Paige Attebery, a resident of Paseo Pueblo. "I've seen a lot of drivers get impatient and make dangerous maneuvers, cutting off other drivers and making illegal turns."

Attebery said the situation has eased up a bit during the summer but anticipates going through the same problem come fall when school is back in session.

"The campus was not designed to accommodate the current vehicular demand generated during the peak periods," stated traffic engineer Sorhab Rashid in a traffic report.

The facility is situated in a commercial area directly across from the busy El Quito Shopping Center and between a senior center and a building of medical offices. Behind the parcel is an empty parking lot that belonged to Westhope Church and is currently in the possession of the city.

The director of the private school, Susan Elliott, said she acknowledges the problem of cars lining up along the streets but pointed out another serious issue. She said the biggest complaint the office receives is from bikers who say that their lane is blocked during the morning unloading times between 8:45 a.m. and 9 a.m. for the first group of students and from 11:30 a.m. to 11:45 a.m. for the afternoon group. In addition, the congestion reappears during the loading hours between 12:45 p.m. and 1 p.m. and from 3:30 p.m. to 3:45 p.m.

As a result of the bike lane blockage, Rashid noted in the report that bicyclists are riding in the streets and UPS trucks are illegally stopping in red zones between school driveways. It also showed 14 cars lined up at one point on Cox Avenue and 20 latecomers filing in after the designated times.

"We're doing all we can to make the best out of this situation," said Elliott. "But it's difficult when some of our neighbors do not want to cooperate with us."

According to Elliott, there used to be a sign in the empty parking lot next to the building of medical offices that prohibited drivers going to the school from parking there. In addition, she said she's spoken with the seniors next door, who objected to the idea of sharing street space.

"Additional parking spaces would help alleviate the situation significantly," she added.

In addition to having teachers park at the Prince of Peace Lutheran Church on the corner of Saratoga and Cox avenues to allow more space in the facility's parking lot, the school has a system in place that involves teachers escorting students to and from cars. Elliot calculated that with six teachers plus herself, approximately 100 cars can be taken care of within a 15-minute time frame. She said that parents who arrive late must park elsewhere and escort their children themselves.

"We take our designated drop-off and pickup times very seriously," she said.

Rashid offered some recommendations to school administrators that included educating drivers about the pickup and drop-off system and reinforcing these rules, encouraging drivers to carpool, adopting staggered loading and unloading times, rerouting traffic to other streets and investigating the possibility of sharing the Westhope Church parking lot.

Elliott said that the carpooling solution is not effective because many of the parents feel uncomfortable having their child ride in another person's vehicle. She said that approximately 10 percent of the parents at the school carpool.

Elliot said she will agree to working on establishing staggered times. However, she requested seeing street signs posting the school's pickup and drop-off times along Cox Avenue.

Paseo Presada resident Kathy McGoldrick said she believes establishing staggered pickup and drop-off times would be the most effective way of addressing the issue until parking at West Hope Church becomes available.

Rashid said that if the problems persist, the enrollment capacity may have to be reconsidered or class schedules modified.

But according to Clay Stringham, the school's planning director, the number of students enrolled at the school is already lower than the maximum 120.

The regular school session begins on Sept. 2. Elliot said she hopes to see traffic ease up in the area for the new school year since a new class of 21 students is scheduled to be in class for a full day, reducing the number of cars that would be lined up during the pickup and drop-off times from 101 to 80.