Currently, Lake Shore’s staff and students are frustrated with the construction taking place throughout the city because it is affecting the traffic and their driving. 

While students understand that the roads need to be fixed, they just don’t understand why the city decided to wait until summer ended to begin construction on the roads commonly used to get to school in the morning. 

Jania Robinson, senior, said, “Masonic makes me so mad, like you had all summer to do it and you want to do it now, during school… They had so much time to do it and I feel like they do it in the beginning of the year, every year. It was like this last year, and they were doing it at 13 mile and Masonic, so it made it worse.”

This common pattern of waiting until the summer is over does not make sense to the students. Yes, less people are on those roads during the day while teenagers are at school rather than during the summer when students are out and about, but tearing up the roads and blocking off lanes makes it much more difficult for students to get to school on time in the morning.

“You have to leave your house earlier, driving you have to be more cautious of like, the workers, the cones, and everything. It makes it- everything more difficult,” Robinson said.

Ruby Fetko, junior, also agrees that waiting until school started to begin the construction was a bad idea.

“Construction makes the already crowded area ten times more crowded,” he said.

Not only is the construction irritating to the students, but the staff at Lake Shore also finds the construction to be a burden. 

Jeff Valken, hall monitor, said, “It’s kind of a pain in the butt for everybody right now, because it causes traffic congestion- slows everybody’s commute time down.”

While Valken sees the construction as an annoyance, he also doesn’t let it affect him too much, because he knows it is necessary and will be worth it in the end. He advises that students stay patient, and learn to adapt to these temporary traffic conditions.

“I understand why they need to do it, because the roads were deteriorating real badly. When it is done it is going to be very nice, but in the meantime, you know it is just like the construction at the high school and stuff like that. It is a big inconvenience. Yes, it is frustrating, but you just got to take a breath. You’ll still get there, just maybe a little longer, and you build it into your time management system. Instead of 5 minutes, you add maybe 10 minutes,” Valken said. 

Overall, though the construction is an annoyance and causes delays in traffic, it is important to stay patient and have a positive attitude about it.

“At the end of the day, it’s there to benefit you, it just takes a long time,” Fetko said.