The Blight of the Blair Drop

Post date: Mar 16, 2018 2:42:34 PM

Published 3/16/18

By Nadya Ellerhorst, '20

TRENT WILLHITE/ CHATTERBOX

Students crowd in the Blair Circle during a Halloween parade. Every school morning, traffic occurs as parents drive through this circle and let out students.

It’s 7:12 a.m. You’re in your mom’s car, mentally preparing for your first bell AP U.S. History test. The car pulls into the drop-off line leading to Blair Circle and slows to a crawl. It’s now 7:22. You realize that you won’t have time to stop by your locker when the car suddenly screeches to a halt, thrusting you forward. Someone just cut you off where Fernside Street meets Blair Avenue! Your mom blasts the car’s horn and hollers at the offending vehicle. You finally stop at the entrance to Blair Circle.

It’s 7:26, yet the students getting out of the cars in front of you take their time as if nobody is waiting behind them. It’s 7:27 when you finally get out of the car, and you sprint to your classroom. You run in just as the bell rings, thankful that you’re not late.

Perhaps this isn’t exactly how your morning goes down, but for me, it’s been a routine since my first day at WHHS.

Even though we usually arrive on school grounds well before the bell rings, the confusion and sluggishness of the Blair drop-off line often makes me almost-tardy with high frequence.

The cars that enter from other streets that connect to the main line contribute to the disarray, as people can’t seem to take proper turns entering. But worst of all is Fernside, the last interconnecting street before the entrance to Blair Circle.

People who use Fernside seem to think they can cut in front of everyone else using the standard entrances to the main line. They arrive on time, despite the fact they arrived later than those who started at the beginning of the line, fair and square.

In Blair Circle, students tend to dawdle exiting their cars. They don’t seem to consider that those behind them are also trying to make it to class on time.

Though there seems to be little hope for a perfect solution, some proposals may help solve this drop-off dilemma. Perhaps a barricade can be placed in front of Fernside, and those fed up with this line could always try to use a different drop-off line.

Yet I believe the simplest solution would be that people, when leaving their driver’s car in the circle, pick up their pace. This could make the line go somewhat quicker, and others’ lives somewhat easier.

Either way, my mother and I will just have to slowly voyage through the Blair drop-off line until I get my driver’s license.

And even then, I’ll have to figure out where to park.