DANVILLE — Every morning and afternoon on school days, 35 buses stop to unload and load students on the west side of Danville High School, temporarily closing all three lanes of Jackson Street to traffic.

Now engineers have come up with two different ways of staging the buses.

One idea calls for designating the two lanes closest to the school for buses during drop-off times and keeping the third lane open to other vehicles.

The other calls for moving bus activity to the east side of the building. Buses would use the old track around the football field, and enter and exit on Fairchild Street.

"The objective was, 'What could we do to try and keep Jackson Street open to traffic while loading and unloading students?'" said Mike Magnuson, a senior project manager with Benesch of Chicago.

For the past 10 months, the consulting firm has been studying traffic patterns around the high school, North Ridge Middle School and Edison and East Park elementary schools. Magnuson presented the firms' findings and ideas for improving traffic flow, safety and access to the Danville School Board on Wednesday, and he will present the information to the Danville Public Works Committee later this month.

Danville Area Transportation Study officials used a federal grant to commission the study. That's because city officials are looking at rebuilding a long stretch of Jackson Street, and motorists, bicyclists and pedestrians mainly access the high school, North Ridge and Edison on the busy street.

Benesch engineers — who took video of traffic during morning arrival and afternoon dismissal, counted traffic, and discussed concerns with school staff — didn't find any glaring traffic issues, Magnuson said. But, they did identify areas at all four schools that could be improved.

To no one's surprise, Magnuson said the main problem at the high school is the buses blocking Jackson Street from Woodbury Street to Fairchild. Both alternatives that would keep the street open had pros and cons.

He said the first option, which calls for creating a median between the two bus lanes and other vehicle lane, doesn't fit the current width of Jackson Street, and would taking some of the parking lot. And "you still have the potential for someone stopping (to pick up a student) and blocking Jackson Street," he said.

Magnuson said the second option would require resurfacing the track and widening and improving the bleacher stairs, which students would have to access to get to the buses. Other suggestions would make it safer for pedestrians to cross Fairchild Street to get to parking or the nearby athletic complex.

Engineers came up with two concepts to alleviate congestion at Edison where buses fill the parking lot, causing motorists to line up along Jackson Street while waiting to pick up students. One calls for widening Jackson Street to create on-street parking for southbound traffic heading into the school. The other calls for building a bus path that would loop around the field east of the school.

Ideas for East Park include creating a road south of the school that connects Colfax Drive and May Street, moving staff parking in the back of the school and using that for bus parking and creating additional parking on the north side.

Ideas for North Ridge call for creating a drive for buses on the west side of the school, and creating additional parking in various locations. Another called for improving a private access between the school and American Legion. The only problem is no one knows who owns it, officials said.

Magnuson, City Engineer David Schnelle and Superintendent Mark Denman all stressed that the suggested improvements aren't anything the school district or city will act on immediately. They're ideas that both bodies could incorporate into future improvement plans as funding becomes available.

Magnuson added that the study provides the district and city with hard figures and solid plans that will give them an edge when pursuing competitive grants. "What they want to hear is, 'We have a proposal. We have a concept. If you give us this money, we'll go out and build it,'" he said.