Trick-or-traffic

Residents in the upscale area of Yakima and Chestnut avenues see it every Halloween: hundreds of kids clad in colorful and sometimes gruesome costumes swarming their neighborhood to trick-or-treat.

Parents inch their automobiles through the narrow streets that lack lights and sidewalks, following their kids who are on foot.

Some neighbors say they are overwhelmed by the number of kids -- as many as 900 -- in the area on Halloween night and fear that the mix of cars and children is becoming a safety issue.

Now, a local group -- the Barge-Chestnut Neighborhood Association -- wants to rid the area of traffic on Halloween night. This year they're asking neighbors to turn their porch lights out at 8 p.m. in hopes of reducing late-night traffic in the area.

"When you have the parents following the kids and they're not getting out of their cars -- that's where the problem is," said group member Jennifer Wilde-McMurtrie. "If people are paying attention to their kids and not paying attention to their driving, we've got a recipe for a disaster."

The group talked about closing much of the area to traffic this year -- from 16th and 32nd avenues between Summitview Avenue and Tieton Drive, but said it didn't begin planning far enough in advance.

The hope is to get parents to park and walk with their children rather than clogging the streets with cars, said group member Gary Forrest.

"Just the traffic on Yakima Avenue is atrocious," he said. "You couldn't get an emergency vehicle in there if you wanted to."

Next year the group plans to work on closing the street down earlier, said the group's safety committee chairman, Jeff Feen, who had more than 400 kids come to his door last year in the 2900 block of Yakima Avenue.

"It is a beautiful neighborhood and I think that's why everyone comes here, but our main concern is to create a safe environment," he said. "It's like a parade out there with cars. You hear brakes and tires screeching. It's late and it's dark. For safety reasons, I don't think it's a very good situation."

But city police said such a closure would need approval, not only from residents, but also the City Council.

Despite the group's concern, Yakima Police Capt. Jeff Schneider considers Halloween a pretty safe night in Yakima.

"We haven't had any problems with trick-or-treaters being hit by cars at night," he said. "For the most part, parents are pretty good about slowing down, watching their children and using flashlights and stuff. We just have not had any problems whatsoever."

The area of Yakima and Chestnut avenues isn't the only neighborhood bombarded with kids on Halloween.

The Tancara subdivision near 56th Avenue and Tieton Drive is often hit hard, as are the central areas of the city between Lincoln Avenue and Nob Hill Boulevard, Schneider said.

"That whole area gets a ton of trick-or-treaters, which is a large swath of town," he said.

In Toppenish, the Berger Addition at the northwest end of town is considered a trick-or-treat hotspot. And in Sunnyside, it's Harrison Hill on the west end of town.

Yakima City Councilman Neil McClure, who has met with the group, guesses parents want to take their kids to safe neighborhoods.

"It might be economics, too," he said. "If I were a little kid, I'd want to go to a place where they had neater candy if I could talk my parents into it."

While the group said it's mostly concerned about traffic safety than anything else, there are some residents in the Yakima-Chestnut area who feel bombarded and avoid Halloween altogether, Feen said.

"They go out for the night or turn off the lights an watch TV in the basement," he said.

For neighbor Sue Fenich, who said she enjoys Halloween, it still gets to be too much. She complains that most of the kids she sees are from outside her neighborhood and they continue to knock on her door long after the porch light is turned off.

"I never see 95 percent of the kids that come through here," she said. "I don't know what the draw is."

Her solution: Only spend $50 in candy and once it's gone, turn off all the lights.

Forrest, a 39-year resident, said he has seen a steady increase in kids coming to his door in the 300 block of Barge Street over the years.

He said about 200 kids came to his door last year, but Yakima Avenue residents counted as many as 600 to 900 kids, he said.

The group doesn't want to give the impression that it's trying to thwart Halloween in the area, but merely make it safer for kids, he said.

"It's a fun time up here, people decorate, there's pumpkins and stuff and there hasn't been any vandalism," he said. "We're just concerned with the safety and kids running out into traffic.

"We're not trying to penalize the kids or anything. We're just trying to make it safe."

* Phil Ferolito can be reached at 577-7749 or pferolito@yakimaherald.com.

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