With ongoing construction on the new music building and an inaccessible portion of the parking lot and a new bell schedule, one of this year’s biggest fears was increased traffic.

While there are certainly some major headaches being caused by the construction, the traffic flow around the school seems to be a relatively similar to previous years.

What has been more challenging this year has been parking, especially for staff members whose spots have been temporarily taken by the Measure E construction of the new building.

As more teachers park in the back lot, they now have to arrive early enough to secure a good parking spot, preferably one close to their classroom. This year, arriving later to school sometimes means having to park farther away than in the past.

Then there were all the concerns about the starting time of the school day. School now begins at 8:15, which is around the same time as many of our neighboring schools, such as Redwood Middle School and Foothill Elementary School do.

The redesign of the parking lot traffic system also added to traffic concerns. The new system has only two entrances rather than four entrances like last year. On paper, this means more cars are around campus and should have made coming onto campus a harder task.

But the current reality suggests that traffic problems aren’t much worse than they were in the past, because the later start time has mostly aided traffic by allowing parents and students to arrive during a wider window of time at the elementary schools, Redwood Middle School and SHS.

In the same way that the traffic problems aren’t as dire as they seem, perhaps the weakest complaint with the new schedule is that lunch is now 5 minutes shorter. How is it fair that a 40 minute lunch be reduced to 35? With the late start and daily tutorial, a few minutes chipped off of the lunch time isn’t much to lose sleep over. After all, 35 or 40 minutes, there was never enough time to eat anywhere nice, anyways.

With the year now in full swing, the dire predictions of a traffic armageddon have been greatly exaggerated. Once the new music building opens in the fall of 2017, traffic and parking problems will ease further.