Written By Dereck Acevedo Garcia
Photos By: Gabriel Samano
Have you ever roamed the halls of Eisenhower High School for more than five seconds, every passing period of every day, and seen a massive, unrelenting crowd of people clutter and clog what are made to be “traffic lanes” with people stopping, abruptly changing direction, and bumping into each other? Maybe you’ve seen one of the biggest hubs of crowding in front of the E building, where the railing stops, and everyone is trying to go a different direction out of the E, B/S, and C/D buildings? Well, you’re not the only one. Actually, this is the experience everyone shares on campus, and it’s not a particularly nice one.
Why is this so?
There are multiple psychological and structural reasons as to why we have so much crowding and “human traffic” at Eisenhower. Humans have excellent pattern recognition; we often try to predict others' movements, especially in halls. We also like to have order. Generally, when you walk the halls, you will see people moving one way on one side and the other way on the other side, just like how cars do on roads. An issue that arises from the congestion we make is the lack of awareness of people's surroundings. Whether you’ve done it or seen someone do it, we all know that person who suddenly stops in the middle of a crowded hall. This blindsides our pattern recognition and causes a jam of students stopping and starting. Or maybe you’ve seen that group of students that walk extremely slowly, leaving you unable to get where you want to be or follow the flow of traffic ahead of you. A tranquil few will let this go and walk slowly behind them, but the average person would walk around them and violate the other lane of students trying to go the other way, which disturbs the flow of “traffic” and sometimes completely congests a hall.
The E Building
You’ve probably seen the amount of people twisting, turning, and doing all kinds of weird things to get from one place to another in that giant, crowded mess of human traffic in front of the E building seemingly every single passing period. The congestion here comes from the structure of the school. The railings that prevent us from falling off the buildings, as the fire truck lane was built at a slant, only allow us to exit these buildings through a tiny space in front of the E building that had no thought put into how the students were going to fare with the congestion and lack of direction it creates, especially for those who have to turn that corner and walk down the lane.
Walking in front of that area are those coming from the S/B buildings, already creating a mass of people from twenty different classrooms assaulting that lane space built for fire trucks. Walking through that area are those who come from every classroom in the C, D, and E buildings, all wanting to get out and go their different directions. Some are going through the halls to the rest of the campus, some are going towards the theatre, and some are walking through the storm of those in S/B buildings so they can get there themselves. However, the clashing force comes from those in every building after E, trying to get to every building before E. For example, when I personally have to walk from G building to E building, I constantly have to survive my way through a horde of people vomiting out and stopping, turning, and speeding up in all sorts of ways that overwhelm my brain to comprehend.
Can this be solved?
As long as that fire lane exists and cannot be properly leveled out with the rest of the buildings, like with a slope, this issue will never be solved until the construction on the new buildings is finished, which will then assist those who have to go in that general direction. The only solution that we can offer is to educate others about human traffic etiquette, and to not abruptly stop, turn, or walk super, super slowly with your friends and/or hang out with them and give them extra-long hugs in the middle of a crowded hall where people have places to go. That was my piece on the human traffic and congestion at Eisenhower.
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