Pedestrian Traffic

Embedded in American society is the principle of capitalism, in which efficiency is theoretically rewarded through economic and political advancement. Accordingly, high schools are supposed to prepare students to become productive members of such a society. While this is done in academic classes, there is a critical gap in the inefficient process of passing periods. Currently, students amble down hallways with no particular system to guide them. There are two areas of passing periods that must be reorganized: walking down hallways and intersections between those hallways.

Often, a student is walking when suddenly there lies ahead a row of students obstructing the entire hallway, save for the extreme left edge. The student cannot get around these people, and retreats to bounce from left to right, seeking an opening through which to make an escape. Finally, out of desperation, he careens over to the left, nearly ramming into someone walking in the opposing direction, and then darts back over. Only after this does he find yet another obstacle that starts this cycle again and again. Such a scenario occurs far too frequently at most high schools. Instead, each hallway in a school should be divided into the traditional halves for opposing directions of traffic. Within each side, there will be two lanes separated with boundaries marked by dotted lines on the floor. These lanes will run along every hallway for its entire length, and serve to separate students into single individuals walking front-to-back, as opposed to the present abreast formation. People will then filter themselves into a specific lane based on their walking patterns.

Students fall into two categories of walkers based on their speed and walking style. There are those who walk leisurely, and others who walk rapidly with a purpose. These groups will be required to walk in the left and right lanes, respectively. By separating the slow walkers into their own lane, they will not impede the fast walkers. This will spare them the stress of having others trying to cut around them, and allow them to enjoy their stroll through the school. On the contrary, the fast walkers, which are generally above three miles per hour in speed, will now find themselves able to speed through the hallways more efficiently without the frustration of being stuck behind slow-moving clusters of people. They are free to maneuver quickly into classrooms since the doors are directly on their right.

A new system utilizing traffic lanes also introduces additional transportation issues. Facilities for entering classrooms on the left side of the hallway are needed, as well as a way for walkers in the left lane to enter classrooms on the right. If the individual is not thought of as a pedestrian, but as an automobile with legs, then the concept of a center median is a logical extension of this new system. Students who wish to walk into a classroom on the opposite side should stop in the center and move to the door during a break in the opposing traffic flow. Similarly, a student in the left lane can move to the right and then into a classroom by also waiting for an opening in traffic. These lane regulations would solve half of the passing period congestion problem.

The final area requiring changes is the intersections between hallways; at present, they are tangled fissures filled with idling people. An organized lane system is of no benefit if it dissolves into chaos at intersections. Walking up to such an intersection, one finds girls who stand chatting, boys who are shoving each other, and people walking in random directions. To get through, a person has to fight his or her way around everyone else, struggling in diagonal paths to reach what should have been a perpendicular destination. Such a process resembles nuclear fission, with each person a neutron ready to strike another. To improve this, the concept of roundabouts, circular traffic patterns typically found in Europe, should be applied to organize the traffic between multiple hallways.

Under the new system, individuals walking in lanes out of a hallway would merge onto a circle of students, walking in a counter-clockwise direction. They follow as part of the circle until they are ready to exit onto another hallway. It is analogous to jumping on and off a spinning carousel. A pole should be placed at the center to provide a foundation for the roundabout. Using traffic lights instead would have the potential to block classrooms near the edge of a hallway because of the queue of students that could develop. The roundabout avoids this by funneling the students into occupying the existing unused space in the intersection. With the circular motion, the weakest point in the transportation process is eliminated.

Between the hallways and their intersections, there is a vast amount of room for improvement in the way students walk on high school campuses. The two groups of students unconsciously compete with each other for domination of the hallway; this can change to peaceful coexistence. Through the implementation of a traffic control system, both fast and slow walkers will be able to efficiently navigate through school.