LINKAGE HEIGHTENS TRAFFIC, SAFETY CONCERNS.

Byline: Mary Schubert Daily News Staff Writer

For commuters, the linkage of Whites Canyon and Plum Canyon roads next month will be cause for celebration. Parents and school officials, however, are anxious about the thoroughfare that will be created.

Whites Canyon Road dead-ends northeast of Skyblue Mesa Elementary School. On May 5, the long-delayed connection to Plum Canyon Road will open to traffic - creating a link between Saugus and Canyon Country, between Bouquet Canyon Road and Soledad Canyon Road, two of the Santa Clarita Valley's most heavily traveled expressways.

But Janet Wiese, principal of Skyblue Mesa, said about 90 students who live in a neighborhood east of school will have a tough time crossing suddenly busy Whites Canyon Road if, as many fear, it becomes the midpoint of a four-lane speedway.

``When the city opens a major interesection, they should also provide for the safety of the children, and a crossing guard is essential,'' Wiese said.

The city staff tried to address those concerns, installing a four-way stop sign near the school the day after Wiese and dozens of students and parents attended the April 22 Santa Clarita City Council meeting. Previously, there were stop signs on Steinway Street but none on Whites Canyon Road.

There is also talk of eventually replacing the Whites Canyon-Steinway stop signs with a traffic signal. The principal believes a crossing guard is needed there also.

``The community's feeling is that a traffic signal is needed,'' Wiese said. Los Angeles County officials, she added, ``are anticipating about 10,000 cars (using) that connection from Plum Canyon to Whites Canyon every day.''

``Whether there is a traffic signal or a stop sign, with that amount of traffic, the Skyblue Mesa schoolchildren would not be able to access their school in a safe manner,'' the principal said.

Rabie Rahmani, acting city traffic engineer, said stoplights would cost about $135,000 to design and install at that intersection, a sum the City Council must approve. Whites Canyon-Steinway is on the list of city intersections eligible for a stoplight, and in fact the project already is in the early planning stages, he said.

But Wiese also wants the city to pay for a crossing guard at the Steinway intersection. In the school's 30-year history, that hasn't been a dangerous street crossing simply because Whites Canyon Road ended a block north. A city crossing guard escorts children across Hardesty Avenue and Larbert Street, two neighborhood streets next to the school.

``If the city absolutely refuses to acknowledge the need for a second crossing guard, would they please reposition the guard at Whites Canyon and Steinway?'' Wiese asked.

City officials, she said, don't want to move the crossing guard to the busier intersection and believe the school district should pay for any additional guards that the Skyblue Mesa community wants.

Skyblue Mesa's enrollment is 593 children, in kindergarten through sixth grade. School starts at 8 a.m., a peak commuting hour on Whites Canyon Road.

Morning kindergarten ends at 11:20 a.m. and afternoon kindergarten begins at 11:25, grades 1 and 2 at 1:55 p.m. and the 3 to 6 graders is at 2:45 p.m.

``The school district doesn't normally pay for crossing guards, but we have in the past - in a situation where the school was located at an intersection we consider dangerous,'' said Douglas Bryce, board of education president for the Saugus Union School District.

He said Superintendent Joseph Fazio already sent a letter to the City Council about the potential danger.