Traffic Makes Graduation an Exercise in Frustration

For those who came early, many of the concerns over traffic jams at Cal State Northridge’s graduation ceremony Friday seemed unwarranted. Contrary to the horror stories about congestion that had circulated before the controversial ceremony, the school’s first at the Hollywood Bowl, traffic breezed along and parking was ample.

But the peaceful pace did not last. By about 9:30 a.m., traffic on the Hollywood Freeway in the Cahuenga Pass came to almost a standstill as close to 17,000 people converged on the site, prompting scores of frustrated passengers to get out of cars and walk along the freeway shoulder for more than a mile, authorities said. The cars and their drivers were left to inch along while pedestrians made faster progress.

Even CSUN President James W. Cleary, who was supposed to open the ceremony at 11 a.m., spent three hours in traffic, delaying the ceremony by more than an hour, CSUN spokeswoman Ann Salisbury said. He arrived only after traffic officers opened a lane so his car could get through, she said.

“This is a big mess,” said math major Cece Alemania, 24, as she arrived at the Bowl. “I had to get out of my car and walk. We might as well have had graduation on the freeway. They could have called it the ‘101 Graduation.’ ”

California Highway Patrol Sgt. Mike Brey blamed the jam on people driving to the Bowl, saying traffic backed up onto the freeway as cars on Cahuenga Boulevard waited to park in the Bowl’s 3,500 parking spaces. No accidents were reported, he said.

Shuttle Buses

Many people who made reservations to take buses from the campus changed their minds and took their own cars instead, adding to the congestion, Salisbury said.

The change in plans left many of the 95 buses that the university rented only partially filled, Salisbury said. Eight of the buses were canceled due to a shortage of riders, campus police Lt. Mark Hissong said.

Once under way, however, the graduation seemed to proceed flawlessly, and most of the nearly 17,000 students and guests who attended appeared to be pleased. There was the predictable assortment of bouncing beach balls, metallic balloons, off-beat signs and mortarboards with messages for mom and dad and all the world.

“Actor on board,” “Singers duet better” and “Swerve and hit people at random” were among the slogans on the mortarboards of a group of theater majors. One member of the group wore a “Saturday Night Live” style cone head instead of a mortarboard.

“I found it in my friend’s car trunk,” Bob Fitzgerald said of the cone head. “It was left over from something, and I said, ‘Yes, that’s the statement I want to make.’ ”

A few even said they preferred having graduation at the Bowl to holding it on campus, where it was held until construction forced administrators to look for a different venue this year.

‘More Exciting’

“I think it was a great idea having it here at the Bowl,” said Beth Hoeferkamp, a liberal studies major. “I think it made it very memorable, so I was surprised that a lot of people didn’t like it. I go to campus every day, but this is more exciting.”

In all, the university awarded 5,009 bachelor’s degrees and 934 master’s degrees, although only about 4,000 graduating students showed up for the ceremony, Salisbury said.

Many people sitting in the uppermost seats had to strain to get a glimpse of the proceedings on the stage and in the first few rows, where the graduates were seated. Despite fears of crowding, several rows of seats far in the rear remained empty.

Keynote speaker Dr. Haing S. Ngor, who played the part of a persecuted Cambodian photographer in the movie “The Killing Fields,” spoke of political repression he experienced in Cambodia under the bloody Khmer Rouge regime. But his speech in heavily accented English did not appear to impress some students, who tossed beach balls and fidgeted, eagerly anticipating the awarding of degrees.

The graduation seemed doomed from the day the plans were announced in February. Initial plans for a 7 a.m. start were scrapped after students complained about the early hour. But complaints continued to pour in over the limited seating at the Bowl--administrators at first thought no more than three guests per student would be allowed--and over plans to eliminate the traditional on-stage handshake from Cleary.

But on Friday, many of the worries--except the expected traffic and parking chaos--seemed to evaporate. Most students interviewed said they managed to get as many guest tickets as they wanted, albeit after waiting in long ticket lines and asking friends for extras.

And students did get a handshake, although not from Cleary and not on the stage, but from administrators positioned at each exit from the Bowl.

A group of students opposed to the Bowl as a commencement site said several weeks ago that they planned to hold a protest outside the Bowl on Friday. None showed up, Hissong said.

Most of the problems were outside the Bowl, in the congested streets and parking lots, Hissong said. Inside, everything went smoothly, with enough seats for everybody who showed up, ticket or no ticket, he said.