New school traffic safety plan

Relief may be on the way for weary motorists/parents at Hoover Elementary School, who battle with an extremely narrow street and nasty two-way traffic when picking up and dropping off their kids at the 480-student campus.

The city's parking and transportation commission approved Hoover's new school-traffic safety plan at its Thursday night meeting, which calls for right-turn restrictions, an expanded passenger loading zone and a new valet program to help ease congestion in the mornings and afternoons.

Right now, police have been stationed at the school to keep traffic moving and ticket parents who ignore traffic laws -- like double-parking and parking in loading or restricted zones -- in their zeal to get their kiddies to and from campus.

But school officials say in a few weeks, there will be a new valet program in place to get kids in and out of cars quickly during drop-off and pick-up times, as well as a new one-way traffic direction to calm the current chaos.

Check out Saturday's paper for more details.