Alternate Route

Every one of us has been the victim of a traffic jam. Stuck in a car, surrounded by cars, only trying to get somewhere so you can get out of the car. On the streets around town, there are two main culprits: construction zones and schools.

There is always construction somewhere. Whether they're resurfacing, repainting, or simply surveying the land, there are orange cones narrowing lanes or blocking them completely. My family has a theory that the CA unions have some sort of deal where they get to work in an inefficient manner so that they always, always have work.

The schools are another problem. To start, school zones are 25 mph when children are present. Then there is the problem of the massive congestion due to hundreds of SUVs all trying to wend their way through the streets, in and out of parking lots, all the while not hitting the tiny people who seem oblivious to the dangers of walking across the street full of cars driven by middle aged women. On top of all of this are the school buses. Oh, how I hate them. They stop and stick those little stop signs out and you can be stuck for inordinate amounts of time. I understand the need for those stop signs, I really do. Children are incapable of pivoting their heads back and forth to check for traffic. Head pivoting is saved for the classroom where they turn around and talk to their friends instead of doing their math problems. So we all have to stop and wait for them to make their way off the bus and wander across the street or down the sidewalk at their leisure.

Between these two things, what should be my 25 minute commute will be nearly an hour every morning. We'll probably take some detours through neighborhoods to avoid the mass chaos, but there's only so much that can be done. Unless we take a different approach and promote homeschooling. Then everyone could stay in their beautiful houses. Really, it's a win-win. They'd get more for their money. There would be no gas costs. They'd spend more time in their houses, which they are paying large amounts to stay in anyway. They'd reduce their footprint and the carbon footprints of others. We'd all spend less time on the road emitting whatever it is cars emit when they're idling in traffic.

It's an unusual argument for homeschooling, but alternate routes are the best routes sometimes.