"Yeah, it's a problem," said the crossing guard at the corner of Wood Street and Washington Avenue. "Over a hundred cars a day drop off their kids here… [and] most of the kids get driven to school… there's not enough parking, not enough curb space.

"[The police] know what the situation is," he said. "They come around once in a while to make their presence known… [The Board of Education] should have considered a horseshoe driveway [when they built the addition] but now it's probably too expensive." The crossing guard noted that Principal William Mulcahey does try to help the situation, sometimes personally.

"[Mulcahey] is kind of pro-active. He's out here trying to keep the cars moving."

Several Washington Avenue residents said they deliberately take alternative routes to avoid the traffic.

"When I'm commuting at those times I drive all the way around to avoid it," said one resident. "You have to learn to live with it."

"We've got it down to a routine," said another resident about the alternate route he and his wife take to avoid the intersection. "They should have carved out drop-off lanes when they redid the school" His wife recommended turning part of the grassy area at the corner into a separate drop-off area.

"The kids don't play there anyway. They might lose a tree or two but they could put a two-lane drop-off."

"What really annoys me is when people let their kids off on the other side of the street and expect them to dodge through traffic," said another Washington Avenue resident and parent. "It's unsafe." She suggested parents should only drop off their kids on Wood Street, which the crossing guards block off to make one way during the drop-off and pick-up times.

The parents who end up creating the traffic aren't happy about it either.

"It's a big problem," said Rania Sadek, who has two children in Rutherford schools, one of them at Washington. Sadek said she has been planning on complaining to the borough about the safety concerns created by the traffic.

Annemarie Nikolic, who has three children at Washington, said the traffic is a constant source of concern for her. She's even taken photographs and videos with her cell phone to show people how congested it gets. She said she’s sympathetic towards parents who linger longer than they’re supposed to because they want to watch to make sure their children get into school safely.

However, Mulcahey said the school recently changed its policy to request parents drop off their children and immediately leave so as not add to the back-up. He noted that parents who want to see their children to the door can park a block away and walk them there.

Rutherford Traffic Officer Bill Gumbman said that despite the traffic, the area doesn't have a preponderance of accidents. He said the department gets relatively few complaints from homeowners due to the temporary nature of the traffic each day. He noted that ever since the schools were changed to make Washington and Union kindergarten through third grade, traffic at those two schools has increased and traffic at Lincoln and Pierrepont has subsided.

Mulcahey also noted that kindergarteners are released a few minutes before the first through third graders in order to space out the pick-ups and that different grades exit the building from different entrances. Third graders exit through the Wood Street entrance, though relatively few cars come from that direction to pick them up.