One of my biggest pet peeves is sitting in traffic. While I understand that traffic can be unavoidable at times, it is frustrating to deal with on a daily basis. Now that I am a driver, I experience traffic much more often and it has been embedded into my daily routine.
As a senior at Walpole High School, I experience traffic getting to school everyday. In my commute, the most notable traffic I hit is from the school parking lot, and many other students are experiencing the same difficulty.
“My parking spot is all the way at the far entrance on Common Street and, to get to my spot, I always have to drive through the school zone,” WHS senior Gianna Fredrick said. “It’s always filled with traffic because people are trying to pull in and cross the road. And then if you try to pull in through the back of the school there is always a clog of buses and cars.”
I also experience similar traffic and sometimes it blocks up the whole road on Common Street. As kids are not directed when to cross the roads, cars are constantly stopped for every other student, creating long backups and making it even more difficult to pull into the school parking lot.
“As a student driver, I feel that it is already hard enough with traffic to get into the parking lot and park. With the addition of parents disregarding the slow traffic, idling, speeding and clogging up the parking lot, my morning becomes a lot more stressful,” WHS senior Rebecca Schimdt said.
Once you get past the initial traffic pulling into school, the difficulty is not over yet. Many parents will drop their kids off in the school parking lot rather than the drop off lane, creating further chaos. They often stop in the middle of the parking lot, creating a disruption for those trying to park.
Although there is a lot of traffic in the morning, leaving the parking lot at the end of the day is equally as maddening.
“At the end of the day, coming out of school, I find that it is the most chaotic as students are trying to leave through the bottom exit in both directions. Parents try to enter while they are leaving, and block the students as well the street,” WHS senior Sofia Baroletti said.
When directly leaving the parking lot, it proves difficult to leave in a timely manner due to the long lines of traffic. Attempting to take a left on Common Street is nearly impossible as one has to navigate through two streams of disorganized and chaotic traffic.
Ultimately, the school needs better traffic management to not only benefit its students and staff, but for the drivers in Walpole. A few proposals involve hiring a crossing guard for peak arrival and departure times, having traffic guards control traffic when students exit the parking lot and ensuring that parents use the designated pick up and drop off location.
