Waiting in the parking lot sucks. It is by far the most frustrating thing that is forced upon us every day at Magnet. Our inconvenient location means there’s no good way to speed up the process, but many students tried by going the wrong way and trying to take the left lane of the car riders as a shortcut. Admin tried to stop this, and many students seem frustrated, and think this will only slow everyone down. They think whoever’s directing traffic lets too many people out of the car rider line, forcing students to wait. But do they? I went out on a Tuesday B-day afternoon to observe exactly how many cars from each way are let out, for how long, etc.

I left class around 10 minutes early (which somehow I was allowed to do for this) and set up my observation post right next to the exit of the student parking lot. A lot more people left before 3:30 than I expected, but in about equal numbers from both the car rider line and parking lot, and with little to no traffic concerns. At 3:29 precisely, I started a video recording of the intersection, and began recording the numbers. Mr. Schaaf had yet to arrive, of course, but already there was a short and quick moving line to get out of the parking lot. 15 cars left the student parking lot before the bell rang, while about 3 came from the car rider line. After the bell rang, the cars still were flowing out of the parking lot at a consistent rate, with no traffic. 19 more cars leave the student lot, then at 3:31:30, Mr. Schaaf takes control. Those leaving the student lot now are ok to ignore the stop sign, (although many did before this point) as their left turn is protected. The students are clear to leave for 2 minutes and 45 seconds, and 34 do in that time, for a rate of about one student every 5 seconds. Then, the car rider line gets to move, and does for almost the exact same amount of time, 2 minutes 40 seconds. The line moves slower for them, and only 30 cars, including a bus, get to leave. Then, the students get a whole 6 minutes and 20 seconds, and 46 cars get to leave, only 1 car a little over every 8 seconds, because of the traffic caused by the buses leaving. The car riders get another 2 minutes and 40 seconds, with 43 cars at a rate of 1 car every 3.7 seconds, because of only 2 slowdowns from traffic. Then he lets out 38 cars from the parking lot for 3 minutes 45 seconds, a car every 6 seconds. He stops the students to let someone turn left into the parking lot, and leaves. A few cars take turns exiting, and then all that’s left are around 50 car riders, with the student lot now mostly empty. 

So while waiting in the parking lot to exit while the car riders get to speed past is frustrating, in reality, taking into account the car riders who leave before Mr. Schaaf gets there, as well as the fact that he always lets more cars out of the student lot, this might be as good as it gets for exiting the parking lot quickly without forcing all the car riders to wait.