Since February 4th, South’s parking lot traffic has been following a new pattern. The new pickup and dropoff points to redirect traffic have been getting mixed reviews from the students so far.

Senior Courtney LeBrun finds the layout cumbersome.  “I don’t like it because I live down 32nd, and I used to enter over there [on 19th Avenue] and then swoop around and park in front, but I can’t do that anymore, and it’s inconvenient.”  She also doesn’t think that the safety concerns have been addressed through the new layout.  “I almost got hit this morning, because this lady, she dropped off her student, wasn’t paying attention and just sped up,” said LeBrun.

The previous arrangement caused crowding and often resulted in long back-ups in the parking lot.  The new layout designates a specific entrance and exit on 21st Avenue for student use between 7:30AM-3:30PM.

Other students see the positive benefits to the new design, but have other concerns.  “My parents were really confused at first, they don’t really like it because they’re really used to driving up to the front more often,” said senior Mark Xiong.  However, he does see the advantage to the new parking lot.  “It does feel better walking through here because it’s more safe and there’s not cars continuously coming through to the front door,” he said.

Senior Claire Seitzer Jones said she sees why the change happened, but thinks that the problem just moved further down the street.  “It’s congested one way or the other,” she said.

The new layout has not gone unnoticed by the students of South, but the change is not necessarily being hailed by them as the final solution to South’s parking lot problems.