University arrivals should be staggered

[theendofsummer]

Absolute carnage in our city again. Students all arrive in one weekend. Solid traffic jams and disruption.
Why can they not be scheduled to arrive over two weekends? 🤔The pollution form all the stationery cars was horrible

My central London Robert dyas was absolutely rammed today - I went in innocently for some freezer blocks and it was a nightmare. Students all buying bits and bobs. 15 in the till queue. I walked out.
Did also occur to me what awful waste for everyone to be buying so much plastic ‘stuff’ and hope halls have good recycling facilities etc for end of year.

Ours have a huge recycling collection thing going on at the end of each term.

I work in a Uni town - I always know when term starts, at least a squillion people step out in front of me on my bike whilst glued to their phones. 🙄

Sheffield?

To be honest, it only takes one accident to grind our city to a halt. As a previous poster mentioned, it’s the stupid pointless sports events that really piss me off.

random excellent - yes, I should have known.

Same in Southampton today.
Taking DS to Uni & went to the centre for a few last minute things, and got stuck in a car park for 2 hours.

DS has swimming lessons at the uni. Took a bloody hour and a half to get from the main road to the sports centre car park. Will be noting the date and going on the bus next year!

Here we have two universities and it's moving in weekend at the moment.

What the council have also done to help it is to have a road race scheduled for today using roads the students will all be using, smack in the middle of the areas where halls and university buildings are.
Such sensible planning we thought

However the reality is is it's only once a year and so long as you know in advance it's not too bad. We deliberate avoid the areas this weekend. Meant a longer winding route to drop Dd off at her friends yesterday and pick up today, but quicker than facing the traffic chaos nearer town.

Looks like a number of us from the same area! And yes, it doesn't often take much to clog the ring road anyway, and detain roads are always busy which really doesn't help.

Wait until the 1st July- much worse.

1st July? You mean when they leave?

Never been anywhere near as bad as arrivals day in my experience of living in a university town. That seems way more staggered.

Well sorry, we're adding to traffic today because dd who isn't a fresher wants to be settled in to the house we've been paying for since July a full week before returning to her studies.

If you live in or around a uni town then surely it's expected isn't it?

The Y2 drop off is way easier!

DS's group of 4 moved in over 3 weeks! Freshers starts tomorrow.

I understand The Big Move In for Y1 is a bit crazy, having done it ourselves last year but it must be remembered, students bring cash and vibrancy to uni cities. The suburb closest to the uni's high street is a mass of small, independent shops, many of whom wouldn't survive without the local student population.

As for the big Asda shop- no, I don't think the parents think they're being 'clever', their car is rammed already so it makes sense to do that at uni.

Yes. We drove on but the tail back onto the M1 motorway into Nottingham yesterday apparently was enormous! All cars stuffed to the ceiling with duvets! 😬 They should stagger more, especially where there's multiple unis in one city....agreed.

XR are planning an extinction rebellion week in October. Look on it as pre-training.

No wonder the traffic is bad if their pens and pencils get their own cars.

I was one in the queues yesterday but the university DID stagger the times of arrival. As I have long-standing commitments today, we all agreed to go yesterday. DD loaded most things on Friday night and we set off early in the morning so we could make our slot.

Lots of people are travelling a long way. Our journey was over 200 miles and it's not easy to predict an exact arrival time over that distance. In fact, the M5, M42, M6 & M69 were not bad but the traffic on the Leicester ring road was dire and that's where we lost most time. We just made the slot. Once we arrived it was really well organised. We had 20 minutes to unload, but because we were just before lunch, they were fine about us spending a bit more time as the next lot weren't due in. They had organised off-site parking at the racecourse for parents wanting to spend a bit longer there.

I have experience of Cambridge too. Thank goodness DD1's college has some parking because the thought of dragging her stuff half a mile into the middle of the city to the historic colleges fills me with dread. She's going back next weekend, before the freshers turn up, so hopefully it won't be too bad.

Unfortunately I live near an equestrian facility which is keen to grow its reputation. The chaos that is huge horse lorries inexpertly driven by entitled people on lanes that are barely wide enough for 2 cars to pass is an utter nightmare. This happens on at least 10 weekends per year, starting on either Wednesday or Thursday evenings and goes on until Sunday or Monday. We take our lives in our hands every time we leave our houses. Unlike the universities, these monstrosities can arrive any time between 6am and 10pm. They don't spend any money in the community as they bring all their food, drink & fuel with them. All they do is clog up the lanes, insult the residents and pollute us with their awful diesel engines. Count your blessings OP

Blimey so in addition to this being behind me caught off-guard and unawares yesterday in The Great Dyas Student Stampede for Plastic is ALSO explains the lack of peanut butter, water, coffee, loo roll etc in the Waitrose next door. I actually thought I had missed a Brexit newsflash, the shelves were so ransacked of basics.
Plus car free day today (some central London road closed) meant more arrived yesterday than ever.

Our uni caters for overseas students that arrive with a suitcase or two and nothing else. I've also been an overseas student arriving with a suitcase I could carry (no wheels back them)

In all honesty perhaps there needs to be a push for more use of public transport especially those in halls with kitted out kitchens. You can buy bedding packs to be in your room and presumably the may do a kettle and toaster pack or a home delivery???

All the supermarkets deliver to campus...

I think the whole things has changed and students see having a fully customised room from day 1 as the norm. I loved my year abroad, the lack of "stuff" was liberating as was decorating my room over the year etc.

That does sound like a massive pain, but better to get it over and done with over 2-3 days. Interesting about the road race; I work at a university and as I understand it there are conversations with the council and other big players to check timings of big events eg an open day was rescheduled when it clashed with a big race day and concert.

Do not underestimate the economic impact of a university in your region. In one year, the university contributed over 600 million to the regional economy.

RandomMess we did consider the university packs, but DD has allergies so we needed anti allergy bedding, and I wanted to wash it before use. We used the vacuum bags though, which were magical.

“shelves were so ransacked of basics”.

so, everyone else shops. students “ransack”. Give them a break. There’ll be more peanut butter on the shelves the next day (until 31st October anyway, and that sure as heck won’t be the fault of students).
Try to quash your temporary irritation with warm thoughts of how their money is boosting your town’s economy.

Give me a university town any day, they bring so much added value.

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DS is at Nottingham Uni. In Y1 we had a timed slot for drop off. It was fine.
He's starting his third year next week but moving into his shared house on Thursday. It's only chaos in Y1.

We live just outsidej Cambridge and moving in day there is horrendous. We just avoid the city centre for the day. But it's part and parcel of living in a university city.

Some cities have 3 or more universities (eg Leicester, Birmingham, London) and share limited accomodation and so in that case the unis will often stagger their freshers weeks to minimise disruption.

Our local uni does it over two weekends. Freshers start a week earlier than everyone else. However 2nd and 3rd years can choose to turn up for freshers week (and often do) but they have no lectures, etc.