Traffic coming in and out of Lowell Elementary School during peak pickup and drop off times has long been an issue.

After an accident involving a bus last May, the Duluth school board partnered with St. Louis County to develop a traffic safety plan to help reduce school related congestion on Rice Lake Road.

Now, the county and district have unveiled a plan that they hope will increase both traffic and efficiency – and it starts with swapping the lots that buses and cars use.

Starting this school year, parents dropping their students off will be required to use Lowell’s rear parking lot, just off Barnes Road, and busses will use the main lot in front of the school. The front lot is what city officials say causes backups on Rice Lake.

“Really what’s happening out there is there’s the demand of vehicles getting to the school parking lot is exceeding the size of the parking lot.” Says St. Louis County traffic engineer Vic Lund, who helped develop the plan.

Buses using the main lot will now only be allowed to exit the lot via a right turn onto Rice Lake, as a limited visibility makes left-hand turns out of the lot difficult. The bus accident in May came after the driver took a left onto Rice Lake – and it wasn’t the only recent accident outside of Lowell.

“2019 through 2023. There were two crashes involving vehicles, turning left out of low elementary parking lot on the rice lake road. And they were both parents that had just dropped off their student.” Lund said, saying that the May’s bus crash only raised the importance of the issue.

A result of swapping the lots will include congestion onto Barnes Road, something that’s worried some neighbors.

“I think the biggest amount of feedback we’ve had has been residents of Aspenwood expressing concern about use of Barnes Road.” Said Duluth Schools Superintendent John Magas, who says that ensuring that parents stuck in the Barnes congestion stay off the private side roads.

“I think it’s really important when we roll this out and when we do this, that we work with our families and our staff closely to make sure that they are not cutting through the Aspenwood property.”

Lund says that while there will be congestion on Barnes, it has to go somewhere.

“All traffic solutions and strategies are tradeoffs. There is no silver bullet. So you can exchange one thing for another but you can’t have your cake needed to in traffic.” He added that he believed that diverting school traffic onto Barnes was the right one, given the documented history of accidents on Rice Lake.

The Pilot Program is an ongoing partnership between Duluth Public Schools and St. Louis County.