| Anna L. Mallory

anna.mallory@roanoke.com, 381-8627

Montgomery County students will need to be picked up 10 minutes earlier if the school system doesn't get any help directing traffic on Prices Fork Road, the division's director of transportation said Friday.

Rebecca Mummau said she's nearing the decision to push back bus routes in the morning so students at all grade levels can get to class on time.

This week, buses at Blacksburg High School, Blacksburg Middle School and Blacksburg strand elementary schools have been late mostly because of traffic congestion on Prices Fork Road, the school system said.

On Monday, buses were half an hour late to the old Christiansburg Middle School, where BMS students are enrolled, because of fog and a traffic accident.

Since then, getting buses out of the middle school campus in Blacksburg, which acts as a depot for shuttles to OCMS, has been difficult, Mummau said.

"I'm about at the drop dead point now if I don't hear something [about traffic control] today," she said Friday.

While discussions about how to alleviate the heavy traffic are under way, the school system has not directly asked the county for patrol officers, spokeswoman Brenda Drake said.

The school system has noted that officers used to be present at Blacksburg High School on Patrick Henry Drive.

Superintendent Brenda Blackburn and Blacksburg police Chief Kim Crannis were out of town Friday and neither could be reached for comment.

Right now, no town police officers are helping to direct traffic.

"Everything was working as planned until we ran into this traffic stuff," Mummau said.

"We're going to have wrecks before this is over, if we don't get help."