Lauren Hett, senior

Drive to school, and you’ll encounter them.

Ride your bike to the river, and you’ll have to deal with them.

Come to dinner at my house, and you’ll probably hear about them.

Stoplights.

They get on all of our nerves But for its size, Wichita might be the worst city as far as stoplights are concerned.

On March 26, KWCH ran a story about how Wichita is close to breaking EPA regulations for car emissions. The anchor suggested that people avoid using the drive-through and letting the car idle.

Stoplights were not mentioned.

Has no one considered that Wichita’s poorly timed stoplights might be a significant part of the problem?

A family friend whose job took him all over the United States recently settled in Wichita.  When asked how he liked it, he said, “I’ve been a lot of places. Wichita is not in the top ten worst cities for stoplights; it is the worst city.”

For one thing, driving downtown is a headache. The light finally turns green at one intersection, and you have to stop and wait again one block later.

My dad’s Jeep monitors his mileage and keeps track of drive time. In March, he averaged only 27 mph driving from his house in west Wichita to Friends each day because of time spent idling at stoplights.  Considering that most of his route is on Kellogg, 27 mph is pathetic.

Even little kids notice how badly the lights are timed.

While taking my brother, Ian, (now a junior at Friends) to kindergarten, my dad stopped at the intersection of Westdale and Zoo Boulevard. All the lights were red except for the left turn lane, which was empty. Ian looked around and said with typical 5-year-old astonishment, “Look, Daddy! Everyone’s stopped!”

Clearly this is not a new issue, but with EPA regulations pressing down on the city, it can no longer be a mere topic of conversation at the dinner table.