On average, around 10% of adolescents still walk to and from school in 2022, though that number has declined in the United States over the past few decades as many teenagers are able to drive themselves to school. With the John Adams High School population of around two thousand students, that would mean about two hundred students walk to and from school each day. Even though high school students are between the ages of fourteen to eighteen and likely know the common traffic rules, it can still be quite dangerous for these students to cross extremely busy streets, such as our very own Twyckenham Drive, at early hours of the morning when it is still completely dark out.

At the intersection of Twyckenham Drive and Wall Street, there is no marked crosswalk or stop sign, and cars are not required to stop for pedestrians, making it very difficult to cross the street. It turns into a waiting game of seeing how long it will take for no more cars to come, or wondering if you have enough time to cross before the next car gets too close. As many of my peers and I face this traffic trouble both before and after school, feeling as though we’re playing the 1981 arcade game Frogger, we believe that there should be a marked crosswalk put in place at the aforementioned intersection. Allison Kinney, a junior here at John Adams High School, remarks, “I feel like I’m going to get run over with all of the parents and students in a rush to get out of school.” As drivers going south on Twyckenham Drive do not encounter any stop signs or traffic lights from Jefferson Boulevard until the intersection at Mishawaka Avenue, many of those drivers tend to speed up when approaching the intersection, making it very dangerous and difficult for students to cross. Kinney continues, bringing up the hostility of the drivers, “I would feel a lot safer getting to my house if there was a crosswalk. Sometimes I avoid taking that way because of the challenges crossing that road. Drivers even get mad at the people crossing even though we are trying to get home just like they are.”

Mia Haines, another student who walks home each day, says, “I think we should have a crosswalk there to improve pedestrian safety and to make it easier to cross the roadway, especially since so many students have to walk home from school in that direction.” Although there is a crosswalk at the intersection of Twyckenham and Mishawaka, many students prefer to cross at the more dangerous intersection at Wall Street, as it gets them home faster. A great deal of students live in the Sunnymede neighborhood, meaning that being able to cross at Wall Street and Twyckenham would be much easier. A visible crosswalk where cars are required to stop for pedestrians would make walking to and from school much safer for many of the students at John Adams High School. A solution to this issue and lack of a safe way to cross the street would be to gather support from many students and members of the community, such as making a petition in favor of implementing a crosswalk, and writing a letter to the city including that petition and feedback from the community. Unfortunately, due to the nature of our reactionary society, it will likely take a major accident for any change to occur regarding the state of the intersection.