BY ANDREW HEISERMAN
Staff Writer

ROCHELLE – People dropping off or picking up their children at the local elementary schools may have to rethink their plans for stopping, parking and waiting.
A new parking ordinance for neighborhood elementary schools was passed at Monday night’s Rochelle City Council meeting which aims to eliminate congestion and improve the flow of traffic in the general pick up and drop off areas outside Central, Tilton, May schools and Rochelle Middle School.
According to Rochelle city officials, the elementary schools were built during a different era and the neighborhood streets do not have the capacity to handle the amount of traffic seen today.
“These schools were built back when a lot of the population was either bused or walked to school, that is not the case these days. There is a lot of parental pick-ups and drop offs and the facilities that they have currently are not conducive to doing that,” explained Matt Wittenberg, Rochelle Police Department officer.
Currently, there is a loophole in the Illinois law that states, drivers can temporarily stop in a general no parking zone to pick-up or drop off passengers. With the current city and school budgets, there are not enough funds to build larger parking lots or widen streets, so creating enforceable city ordinances was the only option to improve safety and flow of traffic.

“This kind of closes that loophole and allows some sort of law enforcement to be able to step in and say ‘hey, you can’t do that in these specific areas,’” added Wittenberg.
By creating specific areas to park while waiting for kids the flow of traffic is expected to improve going both ways through intersections. Right now, if one driver is stopped picking up or dropping off, all vehicles behind wait as well.
Wittenberg said the changes in the ordinance to know are not financially motivated but are merely geared for the safety of the students.
“This is not a revenue generator or anything like that, we will work with the parents to educate them before ticketing them,” said Rochelle Police Chief Eric Higby. “The goal is to improve traffic flow and also the safety of the kids, we are not looking to ding a hundred parents the first day.
The ordinance will take some time to go into effect as the signs still have to be ordered and put up around the schools, and officers know as with any new changes there is going to be somewhat of a learning curve and they are here to help.
“When signs are actually out there, it isn’t going to be tickets the first day. It is going to be us out there knocking on people windows saying hey, this is not where you are supposed to park and we need to move you over to a different spot,” added Wittenberg. “That is the whole goal of the police department, it is not to nail people on the first offence but to get people into a general flow to improve the safety of the kids.”
The new laws will officially go into effect once the signs are placed outside of the schools, but it is not definite if that will happen prior to the first day of school next month.
The no parking/no drop-off/no pick-up zones will be located on North 9th Street and 10th Avenue/North 10th Street near Tilton Elementary; North 9th street, North 8th Street and some of West 5th Avenue around Central Elementary School; West 10th Avenue, North 2nd Street and School Avenue near May Elementary school and Calvin Road and portions of School Avenue at Rochelle Middle School.
“I just want to thank officer Wittenberg for the research and work he has put into this,” stated Rochelle City Manager Jeff Fiegenschuh, after the changes were passed by council on Monday night. “He saw a situation and a need to improve safety and took action to solve it.”