The new parking policy is a free for all. Students do not have designated spots; it is a first come first serve policy. Every morning students try to make it to their first period, but with non- assigned parking, students are not guaranteed to get a spot close enough to get to class, or even in the senior lot at all. Clearly, the policy promotes tardiness.
“Man, they give us like four tardy slips and we are not even ensured a parking spot,” said a senior at Athens Drive.
With parking on campus being so expensive, students believe that a parking decal should be assigned. The cost of parking is $200. This is outrageous since students usually end up parking across the street at the church or lake Johnson risking a parking ticket. Students report that some of the people parking in the parking lot do not have a parking pass and take up spots for the people paying the full fee.
“I’ll risk getting that $5 ticket because I am not going to park where I don’t even know who they are,” said an Athens Drive senior.
Assigned parking provided the driver with the input of their parking neighbor and helped if incidents happened. Unassigned parking on the other hand has promoted danger and made it difficult if such an incident happens. Students also do not have any information about their neighbors since they change all the time. Students do not know what type of experience their fellow students obtain. It just calls for accidents to happen. Students also have a higher tendency to speed to make it to the lot before all the spots are taken. Students do not want to arrive late since they can lose privileges but at the same time, they may be risking themselves and others.
“I have to park in the junior lot and it takes me some time to get in the building but if I could park in the senior lot, I would have plenty of time to make it to my 4th period,” said a senior at Athens.
Seniors who purchased their pass later due to the cost are not even allowed to park in the senior parking lot. Seniors are feeling devalued and embarrassed due to having to park separately from their classmates.
The new parking policy is one that no other school in Wake County would ever be envious of. Students’ complaints are raised to unproportional rates at the drive.
“It takes an extra 15 minutes to leave school,” said a senior at Athens.
The new policy needs significant improvement, or these problems will worsen throughout the school year.
