The last few weeks have been hectic for all of us at Grady, especially those who drive to schol. Every year, the people from Music Midtown take over 10th Street, close down lanes, and make life much more difficult for students trying to get to class in the morning. Not only does the Friday of Music Midtown make arrival challenging, the days leading up to the Sept. 18 start of the event get very stressful for students trying to get to school on time, also.

While the additional 10th Street bike lane allows us to share the streets with bikers in a safe fashion, it already blocks traffic on 10th Street and Monroe Drive. Now, Music Midtown takes away another lane so Live Nation can set up the amphitheaters for the festival.

Music Midtown also takes over the dirt lot near the trailers. Without this parking lot, there just aren’t enough spaces for all of the juniors and seniors to park in the main student parking lot. Later in the week, many students looped around Grady multiple times before finding a parking spot at Grady or on one of the streets surrounding the school.

On the day Music Midtown started, the student lot was overcrowded, and cars were parked illegally, resulting in people getting blocked in.

“They should provide more parking for students during Music Midtown week,” junior Anna White said. “I had to drive over the parking bump and onto the sidewalk in order to get out.”

Another change in Grady life is the lockout policy. This ensures that if you neglect to make it to class before 8:30 a.m., you must report to the attendance office for a late pass. Luckily, during the week of Music Midtown, this policy was suspended because Music Midtown construction. With late buses and impenetrable traffic, the system bent toward letting students in late without passes.

It takes me nearly 15 minutes to arrive, even though I only live a mile away from Grady. Honestly, it would probably be faster to just walk to school during this preparation week.

The traffic gets even worse after school. With the rush to get home from work, traffic from downtown clogs up 10th street and Monroe even more. For those of us who want to go home before going to extracurricular activities, this is a terrible waste of time.

All of these changes and delays really made it difficult for students to get to school and park during the last week and a half. Hopefully in the future, Grady and Music Midtown can decipher a better system so that we can get to school on time and accommodate all of the students who need a place to park.