Parking at Edina High School has been problematic for many years due to limited parking spaces and hundreds of student drivers to accommodate, even with additional church lots. The church lots, unfortunately, are significantly further from the high school, causing students to sneak their cars into closer lots during poor weather and hope their violation will go unnoticed. Consequently, EHS administration has recently tightened its parking policies with a significant increase in ticketing, booting, and even towing cars.
On March 13, EHS administration sent a schoolwide email that towing in the Church of St. Patrick’s parking lot would occur the following day for vehicles without a pass and those parked in the wrong church lot. Following the email, retaliation increased significantly, alarming many students. Junior Abby Miller noted that the enforcement actions were abrupt following a sedentary winter. “Hardly anyone was getting ticketed like most of the winter and then all of a sudden, everyone is constantly getting ticketed, and now they’re threatening to tow people,” Miller said.
Many EHS students did not understand the purpose behind the administration’s immediate enforcement due to the belief that the parking lots functioned ordinarily over the winter. “A lot of times if I’m walking through [the Edina Performing Arts Center], there’s still a lot of open spots, so the towing kind of came out of nowhere; it felt like they just wanted something to do,” Miller said.
Miller noted that administration has been strict in its enforcement actions, as some of her friends found tickets on their cars even though they had already purchased a parking pass. “I know people who got ticketed in St. Patrick’s parking lot [even though] they have a St. Patrick’s pass, they just forgot to put it up that day,” Junior Claire Stewart also observed inconsistency in the disciplinary actions. “People who have a fake pass get ticketed, but if you don’t have a pass, you get three warnings and then they ticket you. That doesn’t make sense,” she said.
EHS Principal Paul Paetzel explained that the enforcement actions responded to high levels of illegal parking at EHS. “There’s an increase in tickets because there’s an increase in violations. We have a limited number of spaces– there are only 330 permits issued and so we just had to take some actions to deter people from illegal parking,” he said. While the school let many violations slide over the winter, illegal parking eventually got out of control. “We hit a critical mass. We can tolerate a minor number of violations, but it was becoming intolerable [because] people who had permits couldn’t find spots,” Paetzel said.
In addition to increasing parking lot discipline, administration also plans to increase parking pass prices next year, spreading confusion within the student body. “We’re a public school, so why are we making students pay 400 to 500 dollars for something like that for main lot parking? It’s ridiculous,” Stewart said. Miller was also concerned that increasing parking prices may limit transportation opportunities for some students. “I know people who can’t ride the bus because they are from their open enrolled, so they have to drive which might be price restrictive because it’s super expensive. There’s a lot of students that just can’t afford to shell out that amount of money,” she said.
The increased pricing rates are attributed to the ongoing budget cuts. At a meeting to discuss these cuts, the district determined that raising the price of parking passes by $150 would yield an additional $49,500 per year. “Our district [is] experiencing some financial constraints, and so there are two ways that you can deal with that: One is to reduce your spending, and then the second is to increase your revenue. Schools don’t have a lot of revenue sources; there’s a very small number of things that we charge for, and parking is one of those things. It was just simply a way to increase the revenue,” Paetzel said.
In any event, both Miller and Stewart note that increasing parking prices will only increase the amount of illegal parking at EHS. “The more that they increase the prices, the more people will have an incentive to park illegally because they don’t want to pay insane prices,” Miller said.
Paetzel noted that EHS has looked into many different renovation ideas to improve parking conditions but still has not found a realistic solution. “We’ve had civil engineers look at different solutions. We’ve looked at increasing the number of parking spaces, but we have limited real estate. We’ve even talked about parking ramps, but it’s just so expensive [and] it doesn’t make sense to spend that amount of money,” Paetzel said.
In addition to increasing parking space, Paetzel hopes to improve the entrance and exit means at EHS. “Another thing that is a challenge for the parking is the access to the building [because] here’s only one way in one way out. It creates a difficult flow,” he said.
At the moment, Paetzel believes the best solution is to utilize school bus transportation to reduce congestion in the parking lots. “The buses probably are the best solution, but it’s not necessarily the feedback we’re getting– kids would prefer to drive,’” he said. Although he has not found a permanent solution, Paetzel understands the importance of safe parking at EHS. “Parking is just like everything we do here – it starts with safety [and] making sure that everyone is safe,” he said. “Your experience whether it’s coming in on the bus, being dropped off by a parent, or you’re parking your car, that sets the tone for the day, and so we want to be a really good experience.”
This piece was originally published in Zephyrus’ print edition on April 18, 2024
