Picture this– The school day is finally over. Students jump in their cars to leave as the parking lot overflows with traffic, all bottlenecked towards the single exit. The air fills with the stench of burning rubber as a truck peels out of the lot. After countless complaints, the administration has come up with a solution: Parking permits.
This year’s introduction of parking permits received many different responses, with some students saying it’s more trouble than it’s worth, and others praising the administration for finally doing something about the problems in the parking lot.
The permits were proposed last year after “a lot of community input about parking and driving safely,” Arcata High Principal Kristin Ferderber said.
Ferderber thinks the permits have a real impact. “It’s a lot more orderly,” she said. “Students are driving very carefully and they’re being really responsible.”
However, some students complain about the amount of time it took for them to receive their permits.
“I went in a couple times to ask them about it, and they just said, ‘they’re not done yet,’” junior Magnolia Kelley said. “It took them more than two weeks to get me mine after I turned in my paper.”
Though it is an added difficulty for students, it makes the parking lot much safer.
“I know of a lot of people last year who would drive to school without their license,” junior Sonja Vevoda-Wahlig said. Now that parking permits have been instituted, people parking in the school lot illegally are less of an issue.
There have not been any known violations of the parking permit rule so far, Ferderber and Campus Supervisor Luis Cervantes both reported.
Parking permits also serve as a way to enforce the pre-existing rules. “If a student is driving in an unsafe manner, we are able to … improve that situation so it becomes safer,” Ferderber said.
Vevoda-Wahlig also pointed out that the parking lot feels significantly less crowded, which reduces stress on students entering and exiting the lot.
Yet despite the parking permits data gathered by AP Environmental Science students revealed that there are significantly more people parked in the student lot this year than last year in October.
It is likely that some students are comparing the parking lot now to the end of the year last year. Parking lot trends show that students in the parking lot increases from the beginning to the end of the year, causing a noticeable difference from the end of one year to the start of the next.
If you are looking to get a permit, you can get one by picking up a permit request form from the principal’s office, filling out some basic information, and then turning it in. When you get an email notifying you that it is ready, you can pick it up in the office after showing your driver’s license and proof of insurance.
