5:30 Traffic Jam

Every afternoon at about 5:30 o'clock a traffic jam occurs in Weld Boathouse which would make Harvard Square on the night of a College riot look like a picnic. Of the 2500 men who use Weld every week, some 200 students late each day busily enter and leave single sculls, "comps," and wherries at one end of the float, while at the other end approximately 16 House crews struggle with each other to get their shells in or out of the water. The rest of the float is well taken care of by around 50 potential rowers, who wander aimlessly about taking sun baths, watching crews come and go, and searching for the type of boat they wish to take out. Meanwhile, the Boathouse attendants putter around helplessly, unable to do anything about the situation and wondering how many shells they will have to repair "tomorrow" as a result of the general chaos.

The main reason for all this is, of course, that many of the rowers are majoring in a scientific field. Not being dismissed from their various laboratory courses until 5 o'clock, they all rush down to Weld at the same time, and all arrive within five or ten minutes of each other. There seem to be but two solutions to this problem: one technical, the other general. The technical answer is that men make an effort to tow away from the float as rapidly as possible, not stopping until they are perhaps 50 yards away from the Boathouse. The general solution, however, is more important and would probably be far more successful. It is to have three or four of the Houses use Newell Boathouse instead of Weld. If Newell were assigned to a group of House crews in rotating yeas, no unfairness would be created in the matter of walking distance to and from the respective boat house, and such an innovation, although it might destroy Newell as the sanctum sanctorum of the University crews, would far outweigh this doubtful disadvantage by relieving Weld of its late afternoon congestion.