Morgan Wooten was walking her four daughters to Lacy Elementary School when a sedan and a utility truck sped through the crosswalk in front of her, forcing her to shove her youngest child's stroller toward the parking lot and grab her older daughter by the backpack to yank her out of the street. “I had never been that scared,” Wooten said, describing the moment another mother and two more children were also caught in the crosswalk on Lake Boone Trail.
Wooten, who walks her four daughters — ages three to eight — to school each morning, said getting her four young girls out of the house is the most stressful part of her morning, and that crossing the street should not be, as reported by CBS 17. She said drivers regularly fail to stop for pedestrians and that many simply ignore school zone rules altogether. “School signs are not enough,” Wooten said, adding that the community needs to rally for change.
The crosswalk sits in front of Frances Lacy Elementary School at 2001 Lake Boone Trail, a campus that serves roughly 700 pre-K through fifth-grade students and is among the Wake County schools already designated for flatwork, signage, and pavement marking upgrades under the city's pedestrian safety initiatives, according to the City of Raleigh. Wooten said the sun and the hill near the school make the crossing hard to see, while signs prohibiting left turns in or out of the school entrance are routinely ignored — drivers wait in the left lane anyway, blocking other motorists' view of children in the crosswalk.
A Beacon Request Still Awaiting An Answer
Back in December, Wooten requested that the city install Rectangular Rapid Flashing Beacons at the crosswalk — pedestrian-activated flashing lights designed to alert drivers to people crossing. The city has not yet given her an update on that request, per the CBS 17 report, though officials say a study on the potential installation of flashing lights is about a month from completion.
Federal data underscores why Wooten is pushing so hard for the hardware. The Federal Highway Administration has found that installing the beacons at uncontrolled crosswalks can raise driver yielding compliance from baseline rates as low as 18 percent up to 98 percent. Separate federal safety evaluations show the beacons can cut pedestrian-vehicle crashes by as much as 47 percent, carrying a crash modification factor of 0.53 in urban and suburban corridors. The agency estimates the average cost to furnish and install a complete beacon system at $22,250, covering equipment, labor and materials.
Raleigh has already scheduled four new beacon installations for construction this year, including near Cardinal Gibbons High School and at Moore Square on Blount Street, according to the city's own progress reports. The installations are part of the city's broader pedestrian-safety efforts.
Police Patrols While The Study Continues
In the meantime, the city says it will ask Raleigh police to patrol the area during morning and afternoon carpool periods to enforce compliance with school-zone rules. The school zone carries a 25-mile-per-hour speed limit that kicks in at 8 a.m., matching Lacy Elementary's first bell — meaning students who arrive before the bell rings fall outside that speed-limit protection.
A Statewide Pattern Behind The Local Fear
The anxiety playing out on Lake Boone Trail fits into a grim statewide trend. Pedestrian traffic fatalities across North Carolina reached 281 deaths in 2024, a 12 percent jump over the prior year, according to NCDOT data reported by Hoodline. For now, Wooten and other Lacy Elementary parents are left watching the city's one-month-out study and hoping police patrols hold the line until a permanent fix — if it comes — lights up their corner of Raleigh.
