What time do you leave for school in the morning? Nowadays, if you’re a K through 12 students at the 32nd Street Magnet School, your bus picks you up at around 5:30 AM.
You can thank the closure of the 10 freeway for that. About a mile of I-10 is closed in both directions after a massive fire last weekend damaged over 100 columns between Alameda Street and the East L.A. interchange, near Boyle Heights.
That freeway usually sees more than 300 thousand Angelenos, every day. That includes local Los Angeles bus drivers, teachers, principals, parents and students. And now, it sees none.
One of those Angelenas is Ana Perez. She drives a bus for 32nd Street, one of the schools noticing a big change in transportation because of I-10. Perez says she’s been delayed by having to take alternative routes even today.
Ana Perez: I would have taken the I-10 to pick up Bell High School, but I opt to take in the streets. It would have been faster through the freeway. But with the freeway closure, I just ended up taking Florence all the way down.
The detour, and congestion, have nearly doubled Perez’s commute.
Perez: There is more traffic on the streets, I’ve noticed, because people are taking those traffic streets to avoid the freeway. I’m probably getting here to school maybe ten, 15 minutes later.
And if she’s late, it causes other people to be late.
William Jones: It’s like a domino effect.
William Jones is the 32nd Street School’s Magnet Coordinator.
Jones: If he picks the student up late, the parents late, and then the bus is late. So, obviously that impacts their education because they’re not here on time.
Who would have thought that a closed freeway would affect the education of children as much as it does? Caltrans, the schools and the parents hope repairs over Thanksgiving Break will help alleviate the traffic delays. But the problems could stick around through the end of the semester. That’s a wrench in the works for people like teachers, who like to plan, says 32nd Street Principal Kerry Kehrley.
Kerry Kehrley: Educators like most people, are creatures of habit. And I stand by the gates in the doors when people arrive in the morning and I’m very familiar, having worked here for four years now with arrival times, and I’ve noticed that everyone’s arrival times are pretty dramatically different because they’re either here a lot earlier or not at the exact time they used to be, because they all are trying to figure out new routes.
And beyond disrupting travel and learning, many kids rely on the schools for lunch that they otherwise might not have. Every student at 32nd Street counts on the Free Lunch program. And the school is taking care of them since the freeway fire disrupted commutes, says Principal Kehrley.
Kehrley: For the students who come late, we provide breakfast, lunch and a a small dinner meal as well. So those are still adjusted in terms that we hold for that one bus that comes late.
And now, they’ll play the waiting game until I-10, and Angelenos, are back up and running.
For Annenberg Media, I’m Sophie Sullivan.