Belmont Residents Frustrated by Back-to-School Traffic

Julie Ebin turned in her seat at Belmont Books’ Black Bear Café when she heard the word “traffic.”

 The Arlington resident, whose child goes to school on the Belmont-Cambridge line, has noticed a significant difference in the morning commute with the start of Belmont Middle and High School (BMHS) this month.

“If it’s a random time with no traffic, it takes 15 minutes to get there. Today it took 45,” she said. 

Belmont Hill resident and owner of Belmont Center’s Westcott Mercantile, Mary Thomajan, said the traffic through the Center has gotten worse, with cars backing all the way up Belmont Hill even after 9 a.m.

“The light [at the intersection of Pleasant and Leonard/Clifton Streets] can [change] six or seven times before you go through it, and it backs all the way up to the rotary,” she said.

Kristen Zecchi drives her ninth grader to school each day, but avoids Concord Avenue and the Belmont Middle and High School altogether. Instead, she drops her daughter a few blocks away from the campus.

“Half the town’s kids are in a single campus with no access on one side,” she noted. “The traffic cannot be a surprise to anyone.”

Larry Link is not surprised by commuters’ frustrations. A member of Belmont’s Transportation Advisory Committee and the Traffic Working Group, he said with 669 more students heading to Concord Avenue this year, more cars are heading that way to drop them off. “Close to 70% of high school students arrive to school in single-occupancy vehicles,” he said.  

There are now dedicated drop-off areas for both the middle and high schools. But that is congested too. “If I were a parent dropping [a student off], no way would I be going into either loop; even though the High School one worked last year, there’s an extra one now,” Link said, referencing the dedicated drop-off areas for each of the schools.

Buses Add To The Traffic 
Link said part of the issue stems from not having the middle and high school students ride the same buses. He noted that in rural districts, it’s not uncommon for K–12 students to ride together, but Belmont’s seventh and eighth graders are now riding with the fifth and sixth graders, so those buses make two stops — one at Chenery and one at BMHS. With more buses heading to the middle school, there’s more congestion coming into campus.

Link said there are also fewer incentives for parents to pay for their kids to take the bus, given the cost. He said the Traffic Advisory Committee had originally negotiated the price tag from $600 down to $350, but the fee ended up being $450.

“When you have a middle school opening, the odds are very high that you’ll have at least two kids coming to [BMHS], increasing the bus population,” Link said. “Now it’s $900 to deliver your kids.”

The town took some steps to alleviate congestion for a smoother drop-off, by reversing the direction of traffic on Underwood Street. And school officials are urging kids to bike or walk to school.  

Julie Ebin, for one, is heeding that advice. She says cutting through Belmont by car is no longer an option. Instead, she plans to reluctantly adopt a greener option. 

“We’re going to try biking [to school] tomorrow, but my knee doesn’t like biking. And then once the snow comes,” she trailed off, shaking her head.