LYNWOOD — When the Lynwood Unified School District decided to build Helen Keller Elementary School on Long Beach Boulevard back in 2004, little did city officials know that one day the city would have to pay to relocate one of the boulevard’s signals and revamp the area’s medians to accommodate parents and students who refuse to use the traffic lights at Burton and Euclid avenues.

The city now has taken steps to make the area safer by erecting a temporary fence along the street in front of the school.

While seeking bids to design and build new center medians and move a traffic signal, the city has taken steps to make parents and students cross the street where they are supposed to.

“Basically, what we had to put up was a temporary fence to cut down on the jaywalking along Long Beach Boulevard between Burton Avenue and Euclid Avenue,” said Dan Ojeda, director of the city’s Public Works Department. “It’s down the entire middle of the street. People cross there all the time and it’s extremely dangerous and unsafe there.

“So the fence went up on Monday and it’s going to stay there on a temporary basis so that people can direct themselves to cross at the signals at Euclid or Burton and be safer.”

The city still has to put the construction part of the median out for bids, Ojeda said. And in actuality, construction of the new median and relocation of the traffic light from Burton to Carlin Avenue, isn’t expected to begin before September.

The fence will stay up until then, Ojeda said.

Drivers going south on Long Beach Boulevard can now turn on Burton Avenue, but once the construction begins, motorists will no longer be able to turn east on Burton or Palm Avenue. The two residential streets will be blocked by barriers, Ojeda said. Drivers will not be able to drive across Long Beach Boulevard from either street.

The existing signal at Euclid will remain where it is, Ojeda said.

Erecting a third traffic light at Carlin would be too costly, Ojeda, said, and the three lights would be in too close proximity to each other.

When the school was built back in 2004, the lack of a traffic signal at Carlin wasn’t the biggest concern for school officials or parents.

At the time, the area was known for the prostitutes who lined the boulevard south of the Glenn Anderson (105) Freeway. School district officials were hopeful the new school would get rid of the prostitution problems, but with six motels and two liquor stores in the neighborhood, the problems persisted.

The City Council earlier this year purchased a series of live cameras that feed directly to the Century Sheriff’s Station. Two of the cameras monitor the two-mile radius from Burton to Euclid, resulting in a dramatic drop in prostitution problems there and all along Long Beach Boulevard.

Now, the new fence is also part of the solution.

Mayor Maria Santillan said the city has tried to split the cost of the improvements with the school district, but the response from the district has not been favorable, she said.

“The city looked at different options, including a traffic study,” Santillan said. “The easy solution for the parents that didn’t want to walk an additional block to cross the street, was ‘hey, change the traffic signal.’ Changing the traffic signal is going to cost us $150,000.”

The principal at the school has been very helpful, said the mayor, when it’s come to speaking with parents about jaywalking from the west side of Long Beach Boulevard to get to the school on the other side.

The city has put up “crossing prohibited” signs, and the city’s code enforcement officers have even gone out to the site and handed out citations, but people just refuse to go to the signals, the mayor said.

The fence itself is costing the city $15,000.

The costs of installing the new median and moving the traffic signal will cost the city approximately $333,000.

The city also pays for crossing guards. The new signal at Carlin will require another crossing guard there.

When school resumes Monday after spring break, parents used to crossing Long Beach Boulevard will have to walk around to the signals at Euclid and Burton, said Carmen Garcia, a parent of a student at Helen Keller.

“Parents shouldn’t be doing that anyway. They’re putting their lives in danger and the lives of their kids in danger,” she said. “People are in such a hurry, even in their cars, to make sure their kids are at school on time, that accidents are just waiting to happen. … It’s better to do things the right way, then to do them the wrong way and pay for it with your life, or someone else’s life.”