West El Paso travel headaches grow; UTEP and EPISD back in session

Paisano Drive shutdown on June 12th, after school had ended for the summer. That makes this week the first time that UTEP and EPISD have been in session coupled with the Paisano Detour.

“We understand there is a lot of congestion on the west side and any little thing can set it off”, said Michelle Gardner, Assistant Chief of Police for EPPD.

Gardner said that even if Police were to get involved and help direct traffic, it likely wouldn’t help, “traffic lights are synchronized to work with each other over the whole length of a particular street, so if we are directing traffic in one particular area, then it may actually cause worst problems further down the road.”

EPISD has already noticed traffic causing problems with the arrival of students, “Buses unfortunately aren’t immune. They don’t get a super secret pass to go through the traffic, so yes we have some reports of buses arriving late”, said Melissa Martinez, EPISD Spokesperson.

But Martinez says EPISD plans to work with parents as the school year begins, “every campus will make allowances this week for those tardies, just this week as parents are planing out and try to figure out how much time it takes to get to school”.