BILLINGS— Billings City Council and the community are pushing for safer school zones after 13-year-old Chase Lantz died from injuries he suffered Thursday when a car hit him as he was walking to school.
Many parents have been vocal about the dangers students face while walking to school.
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“Parents are outraged. Why does it take outrage in that ugliness in order for a change to happen?” said Billings parent Erin Gallagher.
Related: Community vigil supports family of Chase Lantz, 13-year old hit by vehicle
Gallagher worked as a crossing guard for two years at the intersection of 32nd Street West and Poly Drive, helping Boulder Elementary School students cross the road.
She told MTN she pushed for crosswalk signs to be placed at that intersection because of the reckless driving she witnessed while working.
“We now have these crosswalk signs out there,” said Gallagher. “As you can tell, they have been hit multiple times. We're lucky those aren't kids that have been hit.”
Gallagher said no crossing guard was at the intersection when she started. She told MTN she thinks it should be easier to become a crossing guard.
“It took over a month to actually get hired,” said Gallagher. “When you haven't had a crossing guard here for years prior to this, why did it take so long?”
Billings Public Schools Superintendent Dr. Erwin Garcia brought up the crossing guard shortage in Monday night’s Billings City Council meeting.
“We're struggling to staff the 48 crossing guard positions that we have. Out of the 48 positions, we can only staff 40,” Garcia said in the meeting.
Billings City Council member Scott Aspenlieder is encouraging community members to apply for those remaining positions.
“That's a way tomorrow they could get engaged and help the school district to protect our kids,” Aspenlieder said in an interview with MTN.
Aspenlieder said the city council is also pushing for middle school and high school areas to be turned into school zones, which would allow for lower speed limits.
“Really the only school zones we have in the City of Billings are around elementary schools in our city,” said Aspenlieder.
He told MTN city council members plan to discuss the idea more next week.
“The goal for all of council is to make that happen as quickly as possible. I don't see why that policy wouldn't be able to be modified by Thanksgiving,” said Aspenlieder.
Another idea people have proposed is building a pedestrian bridge over Grand Avenue near the intersection with Rehberg Lane, where Lantz was hit by a car.
“It just gets people up and out of the way of the traffic,” said Robert Blanton, a Billings parent who started a petition for the bridge this week.
The petition had gathered more than 1,600 signatures as of Tuesday morning. It also asks the city to ban right turns on red lights at the intersection and to station a crossing guard there.
“I’m gonna leave the petition open until something's done,” said Blanton.
City council member Andrew Lindley has rejected the idea for a pedestrian. He told MTN in a written statement, “Many studies show that they actually encourage unsafe crossing in a situation like this because it takes much longer to get across the bridge than just crossing the road. I don't think that this is the best solution, and we currently don't have the funding to pay for it.”
Related: Thousands wear red to honor Billings teen hit while walking to school
Though a pedestrian bridge might not be feasible, Blanton said it is one of many ideas to get the result he really wants to see—safe school zones.
“I don't know Chase's family. But it makes your heart hurt,” said Blanton. “How many of our children need to be killed or hurt for them to be like, ‘okay, there's a problem here.’ And it's not just one school. It's anywhere there's a major road.”
