It seems Cortland is allergic to having a single semester without some type of construction that seemingly never stops.
Between construction starting at 4 am and hearing the loud trucks and equipment clank on the ground to the main roads that students take to class being backed up with standstill traffic, this has been an ongoing annoyance for over a year and a half.
Last year, it was Groton being totally ripped apart from the beginning of the fall semester to the end of the spring. Students were not able to leave their driveways, and were given no notice that it was going to happen. The roads were paved one week with nice flowing traffic. The following week, the newly paved road was ripped up with huge construction trucks in the middle of the road, where cars had to weave in and around the trucks.
No students had any knowledge of when the construction was going to end as there were no updates. It was kept almost a secret from when the nightmare was going to end. Students were complaining and frustrated as they were growing tired of being inconvenienced everyday. People were getting woken up before the sun even rose and had to prepare to leave for class dramatically earlier to be on time. Dust and dirt was getting into houses, as well as students getting sick from breathing in the particles for so long. Despite the complaints, nothing was done. The students suffered the year long project.
Instead of choosing to do construction over the summer, Cortland loves to wait until all of their students are back in town to start it. It doesn’t make any sense as summer would have prime weather to get construction done, as well as having a dramatically lower number of students in town.
This is proven yet again with the construction that is taking place along Tompkins, a road that a huge number of students live along currently. From the first day of classes, there has been construction, that has caused huge backups on one of the popular roads in Cortland.
It started with construction at one of the main entrances of campus, where new lanes were made with cones. Now, it has grown to the entire road of Tompkins. Despite there being signs up for construction, there were none placed along where the majority of students live.
Overnight, the left side of the Tompkins was torn up. It was now a one way street. There were signs put up all of a sudden. This caused students to, once again, not be able to leave their driveways. This caused some students to be late for classes as they did not plan to leave earlier for classes, as they didn’t know the construction was even going to happen.
The traffic has become a whole different level due to this. Cars on Main Street sat in traffic in over ten minutes, without moving an inch. Cars have been turning around and taking different routes to avoid the vast amount of traffic. Side streets leading to Tompkins have been piled up with lines of cars, waiting for them to be allowed to drive on a now one-way road.
The workers in charge of directing traffic have done a terrible job as well. Traffic has become a safety hazard as cars have been turning onto the one way road on the opposite direction the traffic was directed to go.
It is still going on currently, and the right side of Tompkins is probably next. It is annoying how consistent students have been inconvenienced over and over again. They pay thousands of dollars to be able to live in a house or apartment and be able to come and go as they please and the construction makes it not possible.
It is nice that Cortland is trying to fix the streets and its overall appearance, but the way they go about it doesn’t make sense. To pick a time of year where there is an influx of people in the town and more people depend on these roads, it makes the roads a driving course.
Having to find alternate routes to avoid the aggravating slow traffic is annoying, as well as not knowing construction is occurring until it appears in front of their house, and they can’t drive out of the driveway. A simple commute has turned into something where you dodge every cone, person, car, truck, etc. in the road.
The excessive construction has caused huge headache. The timing of when construction occurs should be better thought of, because it is not fair to not only the students, but also the residents of Cortland.