For Kay Singkeo and her two children who attend Holy Rosary School, using the crosswalk at California Ave s.w. and Dakota s.w. has always been treacherous during the a.m. commuter rush.

“Cars are just flying by that early in the morning,” she said.

Finally, last school year, she got fed up with the morning gauntlet and contacted the Seattle Department of Transportation to request school speed limit signs be installed since there are a number of schools near the intersection and many children using it on a weekly basis.

“It took an unreal number of phone calls,” Singkeo said. “I wasn’t going to let up because it’s about all of our safety.”

Finally, in September, her persistence paid off. SDOT installed signs that read, “20 mph School Zone When Children are Present.”

But nothing changed.

“Much to the danger of our students, (the signs) are going virtually ignored,” she said. “I even drove my car around the block to see how visible the signs are, and they are there.”

Wendy Warborg walks her children to school as well and has had a couple of close calls at the crosswalk, one time having to grab her daughter by the hood and yank her back to avoid a car.

“I don’t feel safe letting my kids cross here alone, ever,” Warborg said. “It’s the same thing you see everywhere. A lot of people texting, they are not looking up at the sidewalk.”

“You have to barge your way out there to get people to stop,” said another woman using the crosswalk.

“It’s kind of a complex relationship between driver behavior and the cues they take from the roadway,” SDOT employee Brian Dougherty said, adding that he did not have a clear reason why the speed limit was not being honored by drivers. He is the one who finally got signs installed at the dangerous intersection last month.

One problem may be that the signs are becoming obscured by vegetation along California Ave.

Initially, Singkeo asked Dougherty about getting signs with flashing lights installed, but the idea quickly became an impossibility due to the cost involved (she was told it costs around $15,000 per sign).

The City of Spokane Valley recently did a study on the effectiveness of signs with flashing lights after installing them at two elementary schools. The study found a 19.3 percent speed reduction at one school and a 31.9 percent reduction at the other.

According to Dougherty, SDOT guidelines dictate that any school (kindergarten through 12th grade), whether public or private, can get regular, “shoulder-mounted” signs, but only public schools can get upgraded versions from public funding.

For private school areas, such as the California and Dakota intersection, the money for upgrades “would have to come out of a neighborhood street fund which is way for citizens to gain access to public funding for those types of improvements, or it would have to be privately funded,” Dougherty said.

Citizens need to contact their Department of Neighborhoods district coordinator for more information on neighborhood street funds, Dougherty said. Stan Lock (stan.lock@seattle.gov) is West Seattle’s contact.

The big concern for Singkeo and the multitudes of students and parents using the Dakota/Califonia crosswalk is how to get people to heed the signs and slow down.

She has called SDOT about having orange flags installed on the signs to draw attention, but has not heard back yet. She has talked with policeman from the Southwest precinct but has yet to see an officer there to write tickets.

“So who cares about this … I don’t know,” she said.

Operations Lieutenant Norm James of the Southwest precinct said his officers choose school zones to patrol either on a random basis or based on complaints. He encourages citizens to contact the precinct so they can get a traffic officer to areas of concern.

“I’m glad that those signs are there,” Singkeo said, “and I just want people to know that it’s a serious thing that they need to pay attention to.”

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