Issaquah is a diverse town, with people from all over the world, of various interests, backgrounds, and lifestyles. However, one thing we all have in common is traffic. Every morning on a school day, bright red brake lights can be seen a mile away as cars crowd on East Sunset Way, lining up to enter yet another line onto 2nd Avenue to enter the high school and middle school campuses. “The problem with traffic,” senior Berkan Mertan states, “is we have one main road that all people take, and our school has a really large population. When everyone is trying to get in through that one road, obviously there’s gonna be congestion.”
Starting this year, Issaquah High School administrators have actively encouraged students—particularly underclassmen—to take the bus to school, rather than have their parents drive them to school in order to reduce the school’s traffic. Freshman Grace Chapman has heeded that advice and rides the bus to school most mornings. “It’s like a 20-to-30-minute drive from my house,” Chapman says. “I think trying to take the buses is better because there’s not like all the cars just taking one person.”
Unfortunately, while taking the bus is a great option for some students, Issaquah High School currently enrolls more than 2500 students, when it was originally built for about a third of that number. This overpopulation not only overcrowds our school’s hallways and roads but also causes problems for some of our school buses. Junior Daphne Chen rides the bus to school and finds it uncomfortable and not ideal. “Sometimes the heater is jammed up and there’s a bunch of people in there so it’s super stuffy,” Chen says, which leads her to try to get dropped off at school by parents whenever possible. Chen is not the only one that prefers not to take the bus. Sophomore Gregory Cohen has tried two methods to get to school in the mornings: riding the school bus and driving himself, and there is a clear winner in his mind. “I prefer taking a car because there’s more space and because I can leave later so I have more time to get ready in the morning,” shared Cohen.
The overcrowding of our school buses goes to show that until something changes, whether that be the construction of a new high school or expansion of the roads leading to IHS, high school traffic is likely here to stay. However, there are alternative solutions that can make the commute to school more bearable. Carpooling with another student is always an option and can be especially beneficial since carpool parking passes have higher priority than other drivers. Another option is parking farther away from the school. Mertan carpools with a neighbor to school, but rather than applying and paying $180 for a school parking pass, the two of them decided instead to park at the Issaquah community center. “It’s easy to walk there because you don’t have to deal with the hassle of parking,” he explains. Not only that, but those who park at the community center tend to have an easier time getting home because they are able to avoid the chaos in the school parking lots when the school day ends.
With the district planning the construction of a new high school to be completed by the 2027-28 school year, there is some hope for IHS underclassmen for a shorter commute to school in the mornings. But for those of us set to graduate IHS in the next 2 years, we are stuck as is, which means students will have to get innovative with how to get to school. Biking and walking to school are popular options for students that live close to the school. For students that live farther away, finding a convenient carpool can not only save gas and money, but also time. In the end, with a fast-growing population, Issaquah’s morning traffic is here to stay, so it is up to students to decide how they navigate it.