The new construction at Park brought many noticeable changes, one of which is the parking lot. The area has been a problem since I first got my license in 2022; it’s recently undergone some major changes. A bus area was added and the student lot was expanded back. The back half of the lot is dedicated to student parking. Additionally, new rules were set in place on how to use the lot. 

The first day of school, pulling into the new lot, something stood out. Every individual spot had its own number. This solved one of the biggest problems that students faced coming to school. Wondering if they would be able to get a spot in the morning. Last year I had an open first hour. I had bought a parking pass, however, usually when I arrived all of the spots would be full. I would have to park down the street. When I’d walk through the lot to get to the entrance I would see numerous cars without a parking permit. Somedays I would pick up unexcused absences because of this. A numbering system fixes that problem almost instantly.

The numbering system doesn’t work completely if the rules aren’t enforced, however. Before the school year, Park released a detailed statement of the consequences of violating the number system. They’ve released rules like this in the past but have failed at enforcing them. So far it seems they have done a very good job at enforcing the new sanctions. I’ve seen cars with tickets and no one I’ve heard of has had someone else in their spot. If someone’s not in the right spot there will be consequences. The first violation is a warning, student meeting and the parents are notified. The second is a ten dollar fine plus a meeting with the student and a call home. A third violation is a $20 fine, a visit with the student, and a warning to the parents. The fourth violation will be a $20 boot removal fee and all fees must be paid.

A concern for the new parking lot was the single entrance and exit. Some students feared that it would bring congestion and longer wait times. So far I have had and seen no problems. The traffic has been the same or less than past years. The busing being moved inwards contributes to this greatly. Last year students would sit at the intersection at Georgia and 32nd waiting for cars that were backed up by the buses on the street. It’s eliminated this year, keeping steady flow out of the parking lot.

With less traffic and only one entrance, the parking lot seems to be safer than it has been in the past. The school has also mentioned in the student handbook that reckless drivers will be referred to the St. Louis Park police department. The single entrance has taken away kids speeding down lanes of the lot. It also added a walking path down one of the sides. It eliminated people walking carelessly through the road.

Overall, Park did a good job with the new parking situation. It implemented a new system and so far it’s been widely successful. The numbering system is making it fair. The school has implemented rules and consequences. And the lot is much safer because of the structure. Adding these things together, the new lot is a lot better for Park students.

Over the last year, Park has remodeled the student parking lot. Some of the changes include making it smaller, changing the distribution of spots and even turning half of the lot into an area for buses to park. These changes have affected students in many different ways. Most of the changes have hurt the student body.

The first change was turning the front section of the lot into a parking space for the buses. This change eliminated a majority of the parking spaces and even eliminated one of the exit/entrances to get in and out of the parking lot. This change causes traffic in the parking lot because there’s a ton of kids trying to leave the same exit every day which can take longer than previous years.

Along with the removal of the exit, students are also assigned to a specific parking spot. They have to park in the same spot every day. This makes many kids have bad parking spots, having to walk a long way to school from their spot everyday. Some of the spots also get blocked in by other cars on the way out of school which causes them to have to wait a long time to leave, or fight their way out. 

During the construction, almost half of the parking lot was lost to make space for the buses to park. This wasted a lot of space in the lot for cars because the buses always used to park on the street, which worked well. In the bus lot, there’s also a lot of leftover space that could be used for more student parking. A lot of students didn’t end up getting parking passes which makes them have to park really far from the school. The school tried to add more parking spots to the student section but that creates small spots and much more traffic. 

The smaller spaces in the lot can cause kids to crash into other kids’ cars. With or without paying attention, the smaller spaces make it easier for you and the person next to you to park poorly. This means people are sometimes not able to park in their own spots.. I have seen multiple minor crashes in the parking lot already. Where kids hit parked cars because of the small parking spaces. 

With all of the kids going in and out of the parking lot, more space and more parking spots were essential. The new parking lot got rid of many things that were needed and a lot of students have been screwed over by the new parking lot, by not getting passes or getting a bad spot. This is why I preferred the old parking lot to the new one. I believe they should make the parking lot for the buses smaller and have the student lot expand into it to add more spots and create bigger spots or expand into the empty field next to the parking lot if possible.