Many students, whether they drive themselves to school or are driven by a parent, have noticed the morning traffic congesting both the back and front OH parking lots. The delays can be attributed to a multitude of factors, many of which are difficult to solve.
“It can take up to fifteen minutes to finally get out of the car,” OH junior Grayson Fisher said.
Grayson is driven to school by a parent and dropped off in the front of the building. He identified clear points of causation for traffic “[Traffic on Route 34 in Oswego] could be minimized maybe, cross traffic makes it difficult for as many cars to turn as needed,” Grayson said.
The parent drop off lines seem to have almost equal delays to student driver lines.
Non-student commuters also have something to say about it. In a local community safety discussion post on Facebook there were many remarks regarding morning traffic.
“I agree that these intersections are getting insane,” said John Melanson, an Oswegoan commuter.
Although morning traffic can cause minor delays, being late to class does not seem to be a pressing issue just yet, and that is after several attempts to improve traffic flow. The gravel lot provides extra parking for students, and a more recent walking path, Nunamaker Way, for commuting students has made it safer for those walking from the gravel lot to the building.
“I spend at least half of my drive to school stuck in traffic,” Grayson said, “But it’s never made me late to class.”
OH senior Ben Altschul drives himself to school and enters through the back side via Plank Drive.
“Depending on when I leave it takes no more than five minutes to get to school,” Altschul said.
Altschul makes note of how the time one leaves for school impacts the level of traffic they will encounter, posing leaving earlier than usual as a possible solution to avoiding delays.
“The traffic [I get caught in] is heavily dictated by when I decide to leave,” Altschul said. “If I leave closer to when school starts, I can sit there for close to ten minutes trying to get to my parking spot.”
While Altschul’s solution is to leave for school earlier, there is no solution to the wait to get into the drop-off lane or the south student parking lots, especially once the clock ticks toward 7 AM.
”It’s sort of inevitable with the amount of people who come through one road to get here,” Altschul said. And like Grayson, Altschule added, “Maybe if I was coming to class late everyday it would be a problem, but that’s not happened yet.”
Although morning arrival traffic can definitely affect students’ mornings, it seems that all it takes to beat the line is a little planning and the willingness to wake up a little earlier.
“It’s really all about if I can get out the door early enough,” Altschul said.
