With the start of the 25-26 school year, new, and familiar,traffic issues have arisen on Telegraph Road. It seems that when there’s construction work on the roads, it always falls between the months that school is in session. For those who make the daily struggle to get to school, work, or even their houses, they know how frustrating the disruption can be. As one of those students, I think it has been highly aggravating. 

Sophomore Jacklynn Ruffinelli relays her concerns on the construction and the hardship and chaos that comes with it for many.

“It’s honestly really annoying [because] people are getting to school late and it takes away from what we’re supposed to be learning,” Ruffinelli said. “One day we were [heading to school], and we didn’t know that [the] left lane was closed. We had to do a completely different detour [that] was more backed up,”

I initially agreed with Ruffinelli. I had similar experiences and concerns with the situation. However, after a conversation with an associate from Ventura’s public information center, I began to understand the situation and to be more sympathetic. 

With all these concerns and comments, I spoke with the lovely Jennifer Nance, Ventura’s communications manager and public information officer on the phone. Telegraph Road is an extremely busy street, and with a lot of wear, there is, of course, a lot of tear. The benefits of the construction, outside of the roads being redone, comes with the plan to create better sidewalks, wheelchair accessibility, creating a new bike lane and some drought tolerant landscaping for the medians that have noticeably changed. This benefits our community and city to be a better place. 

“I would say [ the new additions of the construction is] the best part of the project,” Nance said.

I would like to stress the importance of remembering the sheer amount of road ways we have in Ventura. Ventura has about 700 miles of streets which, in comparison, is enough road to make it to the Oregon border. In addition, the roads are more than 150 years old. Therefore, a lot of roads need to be maintained and managed, especially with the age and life expectancy of the roads. 

Each time they do a road project, it is estimated to last between 25 to 30 years, but due to the publicity of the road, it won’t always last the full 30. However, with the correct atmospheric weather the asphalt will actually last.

 Aligning all the construction properly to fit everyone’s schedule is quite unrealistic. Nance’s team always tries to work with Buena’s administration and principals from neighboring schools. As most people can imagine, overnight labor is extremely expensive, but they try their best to meet everyone’s needs. 

“We can’t always line it up, but we do try to accommodate [the construction with everyone nearby, trying to also keep in mind the community] the best we can,” Nance said.

The city overall tries their best to be accommodating for everyone, but it’s a task that ultimately needs to be done, that will benefit our roadways. We should learn to be more open-minded when it comes to not critiquing the hard working city, especially in cases like these that affect everyone, from the smallest of students to the critical employees.