Carlmont High School students face new traffic issues in the wake of the reopening of Ralston Middle School.
Last Wednesday, Ralston Middle School reopened after a summer of campus construction. With more parents driving their children to school in the morning, the already busy Ralston Ave. has become even more crowded. The excess of cars in the area has caused traffic congestion.
With Carlmont High School in such close proximity to the busy Ralston Ave., Carlmont students are feeling the effect.
“The 260 bus gets to school a lot later now,” said sophomore Kelly Song. “It arrives almost ten minutes later.”
The 260 SamTrans bus travels down Ralston Ave., which means the bus feels the full brunt of the traffic caused from Ralston students on their way to school. The public transportation buses coming later results in students not having as much time to go to their lockers or do other things before class.
Students being driven by their parents who take Ralston Ave. as a route to school are also noticing more cars on the roads.
“Turning onto residential streets from Ralston Ave. is more difficult. It is noticeably more busy.” said sophomore Melody Shanahan.
While traffic going up the hill is bad, traffic coming down the hill can be considered worse at times, making drivers wait for longer periods of time to make turns onto smaller streets.
Other student have found ways to avoid the traffic.
“It doesn’t cause me a problem because I leave my house early.” said junior Cate Sue.
Ralston Middle School starts later than Carlmont, making leaving one’s house earlier a good option to avoid the bustling traffic.
Sophomore Nathan Kinsey said, “My route avoids Ralston Ave. in order to avoid traffic.”
Using more residential roads in order to get to Carlmont can be helpful as these roads tend to be less busy.
No matter how Carlmont students choose to get to school, everyone will have to get used to waiting in traffic longer or find new ways to avoid the congested areas because Ralston students will be frequenting the roads until at least late June.
