It’s 2:30, and I dart out of the high school to get to my parking space in the football field lot. It’s going to take around 20 minutes to get out of Hollis and I have work in
- Traffic is a nightmare wherever you are, but what are the factors that combine to create an after school car soup at Hollis Brookline High School?
Traffic is a common complaint among students at HB. According to one of the school’s civics teachers, Trevor Duval, it’s a common idea for the class’ final assessment, Project Citizen, where students are asked to create and pitch a solution to a problem in the community. “Between me and Mr. Kaufold’s classes, the topic usually comes up once every semester.”
Despite driving on it every day, many students do not actually know the procedures. I timed the traffic line after school to figure out how long it takes. The buses leave at 2:34, waiting for all students to clear the walkway and then waiting for the thumbs up from the superintendent. It takes 10 minutes and 30 seconds after school ends in total for all traffic to pass the stop sign.
Completely fixing the problem would prove difficult. “Funding is the ultimate obstacle,” according to Duval. He explained that the solutions he saw would involve “millions of dollars being spent to get students home 5-10 minutes faster” and said that “generally, taxpayers aren’t willing to spend money on issues that don’t directly affect them, that’s Civics 101.”
But there are issues that wouldn’t require millions of dollars to fix. A few of these were brought up by Tristan Scales, 26, who has the unique position of a lower lot parking spot. When asked about organization in the lower lot, Tristan stated that it’s “generally fine, but there could be some improvements” noting the flow of traffic in the baseball field lot sent the cars across two crosswalks instead of none like the lot on the other side.
There are also a few hazards that students and staff have pointed out. The driver of Bus 5, Chrystal Becker, mentioned that she had to pay extra attention in the lower parking lots, because student drivers “may try to fly out there to beat the buses.”
One universal point across all interviews was that some kind of organization would be beneficial. Chrystal Becker suggested that crossing guards and a change to the dismissal time for lower lot students would make the exit less hazardous. Similarly, Scales stated that some kind of enforcement would be helpful as some students walk in dangerous manners during that time.
