Sometimes you notice things only in their absence. Take the traffic congestion on our roads in the mornings. With schools closing over Easter, the suburban roads that channel school runs should have a ghost town feel. It should make for a welcome change from your normal routine where if you snooze, you lose…
Pressing the snooze button on your alarm clock in the morning, as opposed to just getting up, starts off an ugly chain reaction for many on a Monday morning. The extra few minutes in bed are always tempting, but the knock on effect means that you could end up in gridlock if you pass any schools on the way to work.
Like sharks in a feeding frenzy, cars carrying kids to school swarm all over the roads and the blockade seems to double with every passing minute as we approach the 9 o’clock ‘school bell’.
Surely something can be done. Car pooling is a good start, but should we look at an alternative school timetable? Some have suggested staggering school opening times but this might have negative effects on car pooling. Indeed for larger families, this might just result in these same cars being on the roads for a longer school run.
What about a 9:30 or 10am school start? This should separate the work and school commutes but it penalises families who drop the kids off to school on their way to work. There doesn’t seem to be any easy answers and it looks like we’ll just have to grin and bear it for the time being.
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