After years of cars lining up on Craigside Drive every morning, Haldane’s drop-off and pick-up process looks different this spring.

On April 13, Haldane implemented a pilot of a new traffic pattern. Previously, buses drove to the back of the school through Cedar Street, students were dropped off by cars on Craigside Drive, and student drivers parked in the senior parking lot or on Cedar Street and the surrounding area.

Now, under the new traffic pattern, the buses are isolated from all other traffic. Buses drive through Craigside Drive while all cars drive in through Cedar Street. The pilot will continue until the end of the school year, and before the 2026-2027 school year, there will be changes to the pattern as needed based on findings from the pilot.

Changing the traffic pattern ” has been talked about off and on for many years,” said Superintendent Dr. Gail Duffy. As part of the Capital Project, consultants from The Palombo Group, a construction company based in Newburgh and Poughkeepsie, visited campus in January and noted an “unhealthy mix of car, bus, and pedestrian traffic.” Haldane also underwent a transportation audit by Franklin-Essex-Hamilton BOCES, which noted the same. “The goal was to improve safety,” Duffy said, mainly by separating buses from other types of traffic.

According to the district, the pilot has made many improvements. In a newsletter sent to Haldane families on April 24, Duffy cited that cars are now moving through the drop-off line 18 minutes faster on average. Safety has also increased: “Previously, we had cars coming through the loop and passing each other unsafely in front of the main building. All of that has stopped,” Duffy said, “We haven’t noticed an increase in students being late either.”

However, many students were resistant to the change and are not c onv inc ed of its b en ef its. Corinna Mueller, a junior who is driven to school, said, “I feel like the old traffic pattern was a non-issue, at least for those who drive to school. Personally, I don’t see a significant change in drop-off efficiency for myself or my friends.”

Before the pilot was implemented, some residents of Cedar Street and the surrounding area gave their opinions and concerns at a presentation about the traffic pattern for the PTA. “The new traffic pattern hasn’t had a huge impact,” said Heather O’Neil, a Haldane parent and resident of Locust Ridge, after the pilot started . “There’s 10 minutes where there’s way more cars than usual on our street, and then it’s over.”

O’Neil said that her main concerns with the new pattern are the increased difficulty in crossing Cedar Street and Mountain Avenue, as well as the safety of students walking to school via Cedar Street. “There are cars coming up and down Main, all trying to turn onto Cedar. I’ve stood watching it multiple times, the drivers are looking at each other like, ‘Are we going to alternate?’ The people turning right turn right away, and the people turning left get irritated and zoom across,” O’Neil said, “So those two cars are so fixated on getting onto Cedar that they aren’t looking for pedestrians.”

Amelia McCarthy, a junior who drives to school, concurred: “I feel like this new model is just moving the traffic problems somewhere else. It’s very unsafe for the people who walk to school and those who walk from their cars to campus buildings like the annex, as there is no visible crosswalk”.

Duffy is aware that while buses have been separated from other traffic, pedestrians and cars are still dangerously mixed. She is working to mitigate this problem by hiring a third crossing guard o n Mountain Avenue, where students exit by the playground, painting new crosswalks, putting up pedestrian signs, and possibly extending the sidewalks on Cedar Street. “We’re trying to see if we could move the boulders on Cedar Street back so that students have more space to walk,” Duffy said. “It’s difficult because we don’t own th e l and right outside of campus, so I just met with both mayors to find out who owns the land.”

Duffy encourages students to be mindful when walking on Cedar Street. “We know it’s the first thing in the morning, you’re just waking up, but you need to be mindful when you’re walking not to have your phone out or walk side by side.”

Community members can submit their feedback about the traffic pilot through a Google form found on Haldane’s website at www.haldaneschool.org/district/trafficpilot. Duffy said she reads public feedback personally and will use this to change the traffic pattern as needed before the next school year.