Finding a parking solution for 800 students is no easy task, but it could’ve been done better for our school than it was. The addition of eighty-eight new parking spots that are now under construction will definitely help fix the problems that we have in the short term, but there will continue to be parking problems. The parking lots at Pella High school don’t properly house the student body, even with many people parking illegally. 

I find it ridiculous that as students we have to pay for a parking pass, especially since there are days where there aren’t enough parking spots for us so we can’t use the parking pass. If the school wants to charge students for a parking pass, then they should be able to guarantee that there is enough parking for the passes they hand out. As it is, there are days when the entire lot is filled, and that’s without the freshmen parking in the school lot.

There have been several times this year when the entire parking lot is filled, but the teacher lot by the Career Academy has quite a few open spots to park in. If the staff and faculty lot was open to students, then the teachers wouldn’t have anywhere to park, but maybe some sort of compromise can be reached. 

Another issue is the fact that the main parking lots have only two entrances/exits. The sheer amount of cars leaving after school causes some people to be stuck in the parking lot past 3:35 or even later. The rush to get out of class, in your car, and out of the lot is something that hundreds of students partake in. The two exit design is highly flawed, but there isn’t really a good way to fix it aside from opening the gates of the bus lot and letting students drive through there to leave the parking lot.

There are ways to fix the problems with the parking lot, and a short term fix is being constructed right now. Eighty-eight new parking spots will open up shortly across the street from the school. These new spots will greatly reduce the stress of having to find a good spot and reduce the amount of illegal parking that occurs now. But eventually, if class sizes keep increasing, even those 88 spots will all be filled, and we’ll need another fix. As of right now, a good solution would be to move the bus barn somewhere else and open that area for student parking. Any solution will undoubtedly be expensive, but something should be done soon.