Constant Construction Affecting Students

The summer of 2017 was a summer of road construction. Highway 16, located in Hartland, WI, has been under construction for the past four months. Although this construction may improve our roads, students find that they’re having a hard time getting to school. On and off ramps on Highway 16 are shut down for extended periods of time with little warning to drivers.

This creates many ongoing problems for all drivers, but especially for arrowhead students.

Ben Woida, an Arrowhead senior and captain of the soccer team, says, “I never know what ramps are closed and when. This makes me late to school because some routes are five minutes, and others are fifteen. And with little to no warning, I can’t prepare ahead of time.”

Not only are students having a hard time rerouting their ways to school, but traffic congestion has also increased. The traffic by Arrowhead High school typically takes 10 minutes in morning regardless of construction. Now it can take up to 20 minutes, even if a student is on campus.

“I’m typically not a morning person, so this construction has really made my mornings seem a lot longer and has altered my morning routine. I also now struggle in my first hour class, because all of the traffic stresses me out and I become restless,” says, Mitchell Berres, a senior and football player at Arrowhead.

Construction is now a common topic at lunch and during class. The discussions are often students complaining about the inconveniences it brings to the community and stories of nearly missed accidents. These mishaps occur due to limited visibility at night with the new sleek black roads, littered with bright orange traffic cones.

“It’s hard to tell if an off ramp is closed because you can never quite tell until you are basically passing it. Because of this I have almost hit cones and swerved on the roads. It almost feels like a scary game of mario kart,” says Woida.

Now that summer has come to an end, students are hopeful that construction will as well. Though students may think Mario Kart is fun on a gaming console, student’s don’t particularly enjoy the unnecessary stress that comes with driving on their everyday roads.