DISTRICT WEIGHS BARREL BARRIER FILLED PLASTIC VATS COULD PROTECT SCHOOL ALONG PEARBLOSSOM HIGHWAY.

Byline: KAREN MAESHIRO Staff Writer

PALMDALE - Water- or sand-filled plastic barrels could be placed outside Barrel Springs School's playground fence as a protective barrier against vehicles passing by at 65 mph on adjacent Pearblossom Highway.

Responding to concerns of parents, Palmdale School District officials are considering using the barrels as a possibly cheaper and quicker option than putting up a metal guard rail or erecting a concrete barrier with a fence or a wall.

``(The trustees) want continued study of one option, which is to explore the possibility of putting an alternative-type barricade, such as the barrels that you see on the freeways,'' said Al Tsai, maintenance and operations administrator.

The district had paid for a traffic study that concluded a traffic barrier was not needed between the school and Pearblossom Highway because of the low accident rate in that area.

Right now a chain-link fence separates the school from the busy roadway. The entire back side of the school is adjacent to the highway, a landscaped area and parking lot at one end and a playground at the other.

The board was presented with six options: to do nothing, to not use the play area, to move the play area, to install a metal guard rail at an estimated cost of $325,000, to install a concrete barrier with a chain-link fence for $375,000, or to install a concrete barrier with a stone masonry wall at $459,000, a staff report said.

Trustees instead directed staff to explore the possibility of using the barrels, which are used at many locations on freeways.

``If it was feasible, it was the quickest solution,'' Tsai said. ``If we do a metal guard rail or the other two, that will have to go through a design phase, permitting with the city. They were looking at something we could do rather quickly and could mitigate any safety issues.''

The study found that Pearblossom Highway between 30th and 40th Streets East ``does not have a high potential for run-off-the-road accidents and would not satisfy the Caltrans guideline for a guard rail.''

There have been eight crashes on that stretch of the highway from 2000 through 2005, the study found. Two resulted in vehicles going off the road, with one ending up near where the school is now, the report said.

The study found a rate of 0.17 accidents per million vehicle miles of travel, which is significantly below the state average of 1.26 for similar roadways, the report said.

karen.maeshiro(at)dailynews.com

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