Owen Maier ’20
Many students have noticed and been impacted by this year’s tight parking. The situation is pushing some to park in illegal spaces, and it seems like on any given Saturday, one must park a half a mile away just to attend sports practice. In fact, Mike Letts, Head of Upper School, said that we have just nine open spots across the entire campus, and that “the faculty, student, and staff parking is completely jammed.” In addition to the few spots, Head of School, T.J. Locke, Ed.D. added that “[the parking] is far away and people have to walk far from the spaces”. Many are speculating the causes of this issue.
First, Mr. Letts believes that there are three reasons for the space shortage. For one, the school has just simply gotten bigger. Naturally, the allotted space seems to get smaller every year. Second, more and more students each year are actually driving their own cars to school, a factor that was not as important in years past. Finally, the space to park to begin with was probably not large enough anyway to handle the expansion of students. Mark Notaro, Director of Operations, said that “ever since we moved out here we recognized that parking’s at a premium”. However, this problem is not as easily solved as one might think.
Episcopal cannot simply pave another parking lot, as it needs approval from the township to carry out large changes to the campus. An addition might require more roads that extend to SR-252, and end up being very complicated. Even so, Episcopal does plan to expand. Mr. Notaro believes that a good location in terms of remoteness and appeal to the township would be “the piece of grass next to the Athletic Center that’s across from the current parking lot”. EA is in talks with the township right now to see whether making this parking is possible. Notaro noted that “we’re probably running out of time for the fall because the asphalt pavers close”. An alternate solution would be to create the parking lot out of a pervious material, a process that could be done sooner than the asphalt. That being said, the school probably won’t see a new space anytime in the near future. In addition, Notaro doesn’t know whether this would be a short or long term solution. For now, students are just going to have to cope.
This may be easier for some, and harder for others. Charlie Barton ‘20 observes the difficulty to park depends on one’s daily routine: “I get in at around 7:50 everyday and it’s pretty easy to park. It’s the people that come in closer to 8:00 that have the most trouble.” Perhaps the problem lies in the habits of the students. Whatever the case may be, Letts believes a good way to help ease the situation for now would be to stay out of the Athletic Center lot, stating that the main purpose of the Athletic Center lot is for visitors, and having it stay that way will help. He also believes that students “don’t fully realize in the afternoons when we have a big game what a large impact filling the Athletic Center with students creates.” This has gotten to such a point that Letts believes that “if we see kids that just continue to ignore our requests I’m not adverse to exploring the options of either taking away your parking privileges or to an extreme level, towing your car.” While this may seem excessive, a filled up lot creates backups and angry parents resulting in “mayhem” for the hard-working staff at Episcopal.
While permanent solutions are in the works, and should be expected relatively soon, it’s safe to say that some of the problems can be shouldered by the student body. While convenience is nice, it is decidedly more important to view this situation in the future. Making the extra couple steps from the car to the building now will make the community at Episcopal more fluid in the long term, for everyone.