News Photo by Julie Riddle Thunder Bay Junior High School students cross the intersection of Hobbs Drive/South Bagley Street and South 3rd Avenue in Alpena on Friday.

ALPENA — Last October, an SUV knocked down an 11-year-old girl as she walked through the intersection of Hobbs Drive and 3rd Avenue in Alpena on her way to Thunder Bay Junior High School.

That incident highlighted the danger city and school officials acknowledged last school year, when they jointly discussed possible improvements for the intersection, which provides the primary inlet to the junior high school.

New, brighter street lights installed by the city now improve visibility on dark mornings, and a grant approved by the state means the city can consider a new traffic system to ease congestion there.

The intersection has not seen the crossing guard and bus reroutes school and city officials suggested last year, however.

On Friday, Thunder Bay 8th grader Ethan Walker and 7th grader Kyler Peterson said they feel safe while crossing the intersection on the way home from school.

Eighth graders Jerry Hardy and Trent Obuchowski, on the other hand, said traffic is still too heavy when students cross the intersection, and the new lights don’t solve the problem.

Asked what drivers should be thinking about when navigating the intersection during its busy times, Hardy said simply, “Not running over kids.”

Traffic at the intersection congests for a short time many school mornings and at the end of the school day, when vehicles on their way to and from the junior high compete with numerous school buses and other vehicles trying to get into or out of the nearby Alpena High School parking lot.

A stoplight at the intersection helps regulate traffic, but, with vehicle flow temporarily too heavy for the light cycle, many drivers hurry as they try to get through on a green light, especially when turning left in any direction.

At the same time, handfuls of students walking to or from the junior high school have to navigate the intersection and hope turning drivers see them.

Last school year, Alpena Public Schools leaders and city officials said they hoped to install a crossing guard at the intersection, hired by the city with the guard’s salary paid by APS.

The Michigan Department of Transportation must authorize the addition of a crossing guard at an intersection, a process involving an expensive traffic study, according to Steve Shultz, Alpena city engineer.

The city and APS decided to delay that process, because a grant expected from MDOT will help the city pay for an overhaul of the intersection that could improve traffic flow at high-congestion times, Shultz said.

MDOT’s website lists Alpena as a recipient of a grant from the Highway Safety Improvement Program, tagged to receive $280,000 toward the $350,000 estimated cost of intersection modernization.

Such an upgrade would probably eliminate the need to consider a crossing guard, Shultz said.

He did not say when the improvement project might begin.

In the meantime, new lights — two on one pole and one on another, the poles flanking 3rd Avenue on the west side of the intersection — provide noticeably brighter light than the two yellow-hued lights that lit the intersection last year.

Still, on a recent dark morning, vehicle lights moving in all directions at the intersection diluted even the brighter lights, making pedestrians difficult to see.

Last year, APS officials pondered adjusting bus movement to decrease the number of buses using the intersection at busy times.

The district has not made such a change and can’t re-route buses serving the junior high school, said Lee Fitzpatrick, APS director of communications.

Alpena Township has considered creating an outlet between the west end of 3rd Avenue and M-32. That change would create a better traffic flow for the junior high but has not happened, Fitzpatrick said.

The intersection falls on a boundary between Alpena — which includes the land east of the intersection — and Alpena Township, which falls to the west of the intersection.

The intersection also marks the point at which South Bagley Street, to the north, turns into Hobbs Drive, to the south.

The city maintains the intersection’s traffic signals as part of an agreement with the Alpena County Road Commission.

Julie Riddle can be reached at 989-358-5693, jriddle@thealpenanews.com or on Twitter @jriddleX.