It’s 7am on January 12th and it’s the first day of the new semester.  The line to get into school is long and the constant ticking of the turn signal is slightly irritating. When it’s finally time to turn into the entrance of the parking lot, it’s shut off. And let the mass U-turns begin. 

This was the reality of a lot of students at Urbana High School on January 12th which almost made people late to their first day of new classes. 

Speaking from a personal perspective, I got to the school shortly after 7 to try and get here a little bit earlier, but once I went to turn in I was told to turn around and go the other way. After all of the waiting I didn’t even get to a parking spot till 7:25. 

“I was really confused,” says Sanaa Nayeem, a junior here at Urbana, “I mean I always turned in there, and so did almost all of the students who park in the auditorium lot.”

Why they did this is beyond most students. Students have been turning in through that entrance the entire year, and long before this year, but there has never been any issue before with the students turning in and everyone was able to make it into the school in an orderly time and fashion. 

“I mean I don’t really know why they did this. But if I had to guess it would be to ‘help’ the flow of traffic between the school and the YMCA.”  Said by Katrin Williams, a junior here at Urbana. 

I’m sure this decision was made with the YMCAs best interest at heart but this shouldn’t really be an issue. There’s never really ever been a large hold up at the side entrance and lots of students found it easier because when entering that way, you were able to avoid the long line that came from parents dropping off their kids at the auditorium doors as well as all the buses and cars that are trying to leave other subsections of the school parking lot. 

With all of these new implications for the parking lot, it is taking almost double the time for students to get in. Although they’ve opened up the left lane for students to move easier through the parking lot, people aren’t listening. Parents are turning through the parking lot and exiting from the only entrance for students. Even with the left lane being open for students to get in easier, and even if people weren’t trying to exit from this way, you are now unable to avoid the time it takes to get from the light all the way to the entrance. Instead of being able to take a left as soon as you get in you’re stuck waiting for other people to move up. 

“In all honesty it’s making everything so much worse. Everyone is trying to get into one entrance from both directions and everything is all clustered over there.” Sanaa Nayeem (11) 

As more time goes by, some of the new system’s kinks might work themselves out, but as for now the parking lot is still pretty chaotic in the morning and you might just think “It’ll be so much easier if they just open it back up again.”