Finding parking is a struggle that students at Huntington Beach High School (HBHS) face every day. The limited parking spaces force students to park off-campus, often in residential areas or ticketed streets. Therefore, expanding the HBHS parking lot is a great solution to counter students’ parking difficulties.
HBHS has a parking area dedicated only to 200 seniors, leaving hundreds of students to find parking elsewhere. Over the past five years, an average of 702 seniors have attended HBHS annually, meaning approximately 502 of them are unable to park in the senior lot.
This data dosn’t even account for the sophomores and juniors who drive, adding hundreds of other students to the list of drivers who can’t park on campus. There aren’t enough spaces for the large number of drivers, so they must park far away and walk to school.
Quinn Hudson, a senior at HBHS without a parking pass, said, “I think it’s annoying [having to walk far] because our school is so big…We have so many kids who go here, and so many who drive. I feel like the school should take action so that kids aren’t parking half a mile away from the school.”
In a recent Instagram poll by our social media, 56 HBHS students were asked how long it took them to walk to school once they parked. Twenty-three percent of those students said they had to walk 10 or more minutes.
Some students park in residential areas, often annoying those living in the houses. Residents have been known for voicing their strifes over high schoolers parking near their homes through handwritten notes left on windshields.
“I have gotten three [notes]. They are just these notes that are left on my windshield, kind of like a ticket. It was just [signed by] residents of this neighborhood,” Hudson said. “I was shocked that the residents cared that much about it, but it makes sense because [the parking] takes away from their street. It must be annoying that all these kids are parking there,” said Hudson.
Another issue with having to park in residential areas is the street sweeping, which occurs twice monthly, depending on the street. Since there are very few places to park, students still park in areas where street sweepings take place, resulting in parking tickets for them.
Senior at HBHS, Julie Nguyen, said, “I got a parking ticket on Park Street because it was street cleaning, but normally, if you make it by the end of school and walk quickly to your car, then you can escape the ticket.”
Because there are such limited parking places, students are forced to park in areas with a risk of getting a ticket.
“When you come to school, there is such limited parking, especially if you don’t have a parking pass. You have to get there so early to get street parking, and there is always street cleaning on certain days on certain streets. People get tickets every week,” Nguyen said.
While the parking at HBHS is clearly an issue, the school has very little space to expand the parking lot.
HBHS Assistant Principal, Dave Yonts, said, “I don’t think we have the space. What you see out there is all we have.”
Even if there was space to add more parking, doing so could take a lot of time and money.
“I would imagine it would take longer than a summer [to build]. There are a lot of things that have to be done before you could even think about building something,” Yonts said.
Taking longer than a summer to build more parking could even create more parking trouble for students, as building more space would mean shutting down a portion of the existing lot. However, while expanding the parking lot could create problems, it would also solve the problem of parking difficulty for hundreds of students.
One solution suggested by Yonts was to build a parking structure. To do this, Miller Field, an athletic field on the HBHS campus, would have to be moved. Yonts said the only place to move Miller Field would be to place it on top of a parking structure. While this would work in high-density areas such as New York, it likely would not be a feasible solution here.
Since building a new parking garage seems unrealistic, moving Miller Field to expand the parking lot is the next best solution. This field was built over previous parking spaces, meaning there is concrete or asphalt underneath, so it would be efficient to add parking spaces in place of it. Also, because of the hard surface underneath the field, players get shin splints from playing on it so often.
Solana Van Enoo, varsity girls’ soccer captain at HBHS, said, “As practice goes on, [my shin splints] start to get worse and worse, so towards the end of it, I’m in a decent amount of pain.”
In place of Miller Field, more parking spaces could be added. Then, Miller Field could be moved to an area with softer ground underneath it, so athletes would no longer get shin splints.
Thus, moving Miller Field to an area with soil underneath would not only add more parking spaces, but it would also benefit the athletes who play on it. With students having to park far every morning and receiving tickets and indignant notes, expanding the HBHS parking lot is necessary. This simple solution would make school days easier for hundreds of people.
