Living in Los Angeles has made me used to traffic. As I drive on the freeway, I expect to hit my brakes right away, and I don’t know if it will be a slow drive or a total stop.
Commuting to school has been my issue every day. This struggle began during the fall semester and the culprit is the 10 Freeway.
At the beginning of the semester, the Kellogg Drive off-ramp was closed for what felt like more than half the semester, leading all of us to detour and take the entrance from East Campus Drive in order to reach South Campus Drive along with other drivers who just wanted to reach the 10 east entrance themselves.
If this option didn’t work for you, then you could always take the streets and catch another entrance further down.
Given that each entrance is pretty far from one another, it would still take time.
This daily struggle added about 20 minutes more onto my drive just to simply get on the freeway and start my drive home.
Then, you have to consider the time it takes to get out of the parking lot along with everyone else because classes end at the same time.
Once the off-ramp was opened by the end of the semester, it was wider and there were now two lanes to get the entrance.
This helped and made me feel much better knowing that during the upcoming spring semester, my drive home would be much smoother.
However, before the spring semester began, we were notified that the off-ramp from the 10 eastbound would be closed for 90 days.
I began to stress even though the semester had not even started yet, and there was already a complication to add to my plate.
This meant more detour options that everyone would have to resort to.
Now we are about six weeks into the 90-day closure and no matter the detour option I take, there will be traffic on each side of campus.
This made me late for class during the first week of school.
I had to leave even earlier from home to make my way through traffic.
What I fail to understand is why construction on the off- ramp exits and on-ramp entrances have to be done during school.
Why are these projects not done during the summer or winter breaks?
Sure, there are classes during those terms, but the traffic doesn’t compare to everyone being on campus during regular semesters.
This issue is small for those who don’t take this freeway, but comes in conflict with everyone because we all want to get to school on time and hunt for parking separately.
Being an L.A. girl, no traffic scares me, and I know it’s the life I chose as a commuter student.
All I ask is why complicate the freeway ramps in the middle of each semester for this academic year?
I just hope these detour struggles don’t affect any future students at Cal Poly Pomona for their remaining time here.
May the traffic die and a smooth drive be in our favor.