Photo By Alan Brennan
Being a Roosevelt High School student comes with various benefits such as a diverse food scene, conveniently located businesses and light rail. However, all these perks come with drawbacks. One of the largest student issues is parking.
The Roosevelt News (TRN) asked peers how they would rate parking difficulty out of ten, Pia Regala ‘25 said, “If I get here before 8:30, it’s a six out of ten. But if I get here even a little bit later than that, it’s a nine out of ten.” With limited parking infrastructure in the neighborhood and many parking spots having two hour limits, many students are forced to either arrive at school early just to secure a parking space, or park far from campus.
The lack of parking not only causes inconvenience, but also impacts students’ punctuality and overall well being. Regala stated, “I’m always a little bit worried that I’m gonna get a ticket. And sometimes during class, I’m just trying to figure out where to go park next.”
However, there is no easy solution to this problem. Assistant Principal Roy Merca explained that there are many different factors that go into this issue. For example, new traffic from the light rail, and increased housing, “They’ll park here [in the staff lot] overnight, and if they don’t have a staff parking sticker, we ticket them. Then we find out it’s the neighborhood.” Merca also said, “Not enough of our kids use Sound Transit. They rather drive a car when they have free ORCA cards, and that floods this neighborhood.” This ‘flooding of the neighborhood’ has caused an “increase of students parking in the staff parking lot.”
One student who routinely parks in the staff lot and wishes to remain anonymous said, “I just kept being late to school and it was ruining my academics. And then one day a little voice came to my head that said ‘park in the staff lot.’ Ever since then, I’ve never been a more happy, studious person.”
However, parking in the staff lot, while convenient, comes with consequences for students. According to Merca the following consequences happen: “First, you get a car sticker. We take down the plates, bring them downtown. And then once we find out who those cars are, we’ll try to notify the parents. The second offense is a $50 fine, third and additional offenses are an extra $50 every time.”
The previously-quoted anonymous students personal response after receiving the school’s car stickers was “if you spray it with water and take an ice scraper on it, it’s gone in 30 seconds so really, sticker me, don’t sticker me. Do what you need. I’m getting out of it.”
Merca’s main concern, however, is to make things easier for teachers. “I think right now we have to put staff first because they have to be able to park and be able to go teach. That’s our number one priority.”
Finding a solution for this problem is complex. Regala thinks that the admin “should give parking passes to student athletes.” An anonymous commenter suggested “Pouring pavement over the football field,” and “making the commons a parking garage.”
Merca believes that “the parking solution is a city issue.” He said, “Last year, I was the one monitoring cars coming into the parking lot. I’m not doing that again because it’s a waste of my time.
