CITY REJECTS CHILD ESCORT ON BUSY ROAD.

Byline: Mary Schubert Daily News Staff Writer

The city will install a traffic signal at a busy intersection near an elementary school but will not pay to station a crossing guard in the interim, the City Council decided this week.

The Saugus Union School District had asked that a crossing guard be assigned to help students at Skyblue Mesa Elementary School cross Whites Canyon Road at Steinway Street.

The city installed stop signs at all four points of the intersection two months ago and plans to add a stoplight there within a year, but it will be up to the school district to fund a crossing guard there, the Santa Clarita City Council voted at its meeting last Tuesday.

The council approved the expenditure of $220,000 for installation of traffic signals at the intersection - an improvement that should be in place by fall 1998, said Bahman Janka, a city traffic engineer.

``It takes us almost a year to design and install a signal,'' Janka said. ``The stop signs will be there until the intersection is signalized.'' The speed limit on that stretch of road is 45 mph, he noted.

Last August, the City Council passed a resolution allowing school districts to hire and provide crossing guards at intersections they deem in need of such protection.

According to a report by Rabie Rahmani, an associate traffic engineer, the city conducted ``pedestrian counts'' of school-age children for several days at the intersection during the peak morning and afternoon periods.

``The highest pedestrian count was 27 school-age children crossing Whites Canyon Road at Steinway Street, observed during the morning school period. The highest count for the afternoon period was 13 school-age children,'' Rahmani's report stated.

The need for some control at the intersection arose May 5, when the city opened a new section of Plum Canyon Road that linked Saugus with Canyon Country, creating a cross-valley thoroughfare for commuters.

Whites Canyon Road previously had dead-ended northeast of Skyblue Mesa, but the opening of the long-delayed connection to Plum Canyon Road created a link between Bouquet Canyon and Soledad Canyon roads, two of the Santa Clarita Valley's most heavily traveled expressways.

Janet Wiese, principal of Skyblue Mesa, said two months ago that about 90 of the school's 565 students live on the opposite side of Whites Canyon Road and therefore would have difficulty crossing it once it became the midpoint of a four-lane speedway.

The Whites Canyon-Steinway intersection hadn't been a busy or dangerous one throughout the school's 30-year history, Wiese added, because Whites Canyon had ended a block north of the school. Then in May, Whites opened to Plum Canyon Road, carrying traffic between Saugus and Canyon Country.

Los Angeles County officials estimated 10,000 cars would use the connection between Plum Canyon and Whites Canyon roads each day, the principal noted.

The school district doesn't normally pay for crossing guards. Saugus district Superintendent Joseph Fazio had sent a letter to the City Council about the potential danger of the intersection.

``The city has taken a position for the past year . . . that the city is no longer going to fund any additional crossing guards,'' Janka said. ``The city currently administers a crossing guard program for the whole city and funds $175,000 for crossing guard services, but the City Council has made a policy that any new crossing guards, the cost of those services should be borne by the school district.