The new Southern Middle School, set to open in Aberdeen next fall, promises to create both a mecca of learning and the site of a dangerous traffic bottleneck.

The school, which will serve grades 6-8 and have a capacity of 850 students, is taking shape near the intersection of U.S. 1 and U.S. 15-501, Moore County’s two busiest and most congested thoroughfares. Traffic will feed into and out of those two roads via a pair of much smaller routes, Johnson and Magnolia streets. Parents, students and school buses traveling Johnson and Magnolia in the rush hours before and after school could be in for delays, frustration and perhaps even peril.

The school itself, of course, is not the problem. The traffic snarl in prospect for next fall is just another symptom of the strip development that has been allowed to occur unchecked along those stretches of U.S. 1 and U.S. 15-501. The traffic glut in that area has, over the years, been the cause of numerous injuries and deaths resulting from automobile accidents. That’s bad enough. But if injuries or fatalities involving school buses or student-driven cars occur after Southern Middle opens, it will be that much worse.

In retrospect, the decision by the Moore County Board of Education to site Southern Middle where it did is at best questionable. Not only will the school’s location make problems for students, parents, teachers and staff, but its presence will also worsen the situation by exacerbating traffic congestion.

The siting decision raises concerns in terms of both safety and land-use policy. A more isolated campus location would have been more conducive to learning and more in keeping with an approach to land use that must prevail in Moore County if it is to preserve any semblance of its small-town charm and sense of place. Population and growth and development pressure increasingly threaten that atmosphere. The school system, with its choice of the location for Southern Middle, has only added to that threat.

But the proverbial siting horse is long since out of the barn –– or perhaps it should be said that the car is out of the garage. The best must be made of a bad situation. State Department of Transportation officials say they are doing traffic analyses for U.S. 1 and U.S. 15-501 in an effort to determine how many more vehicles will travel those routes once the school opens. Using that data, DOT will make a series of decisions regarding placement of signs, installation of signal lights and adjustments to turning lanes.

The state should spare no expense in making the affected routes as safe as possible under the circumstances. Nothing should be taken for granted in minimizing the dangers that could be faced by students and other motorists who will be using these roads and streets.

Even more important, motorists –– particular student drivers and Southern Middle faculty and staff members –– must exercise extreme care when traveling to and from the school. Each must take it upon himself or herself not to become a statistical consequence of an ill-advised decision on the school’s location.