BY RYAN O’CONNOR
Students may not like the idea of eliminating highly sought-after parking spots along the sidewalk, but Bow High School Principal John House- Myers said a little exercise never hurt anyone.
That, and students can always take the school bus. “The biggest issue surrounding parking here on campus is students parking illegally on the sidewalk,” House-Myers said.
“That’s been a concern of the town for quite some time, so we formed a parking task force to raise all the questions and concerns that people have at Bow High School.”
The task force was very receptive to student and parent concerns, said House-Myers, but in the end, safety won out.
“Really, the bottom-line issue that has been on the town’s mind for some time, has been parking on the sidewalk and it was obvious that that was one of those areas that wasn’t negotiable,” he said. “We needed to recapture the sidewalk for pedestrians to walk on.”
Although parking problems may not have been a big issue in years past, student population growth is forcing the task force to take a proactive approach, said House-Myers.
“Right now, there is ample space for parking; it’s just that some of the parking spaces are a little further away,” he said. “I know kids want to park closer, and I understand that, but the decision of the parking task force was to prioritize safety.”
House-Myers acknowledged the idea of eliminating the sidewalk and adding more spaces was considered and though it might make students happy, it would not solve the safety concerns.
Many students expressed negativity toward the changes, but the decisions were group based, said junior Kelly Lynch, who was one of two student representatives on the task force. She said students should recognize that before they blame House-Myers, whom she termed the “cover man for the task force.”
“Obviously, as a student, I’m not going to vote for a bunch of parking spaces (along the sidewalk) to get taken away because I park there, too, and really don’t want to walk all the way from (the basketball courts),” she said.
“But, I wish students would just take a step back and see it from our perspective. This was the only solution that made sense for the time being and it’s not as simple as a lot of people think.”
Moreover, she said, many influential officials in town support the idea, including Police Chief Jeff Jaran, Assistant Fire Chief Richard Pistey and Selectman Eric Anderson.
“As a student, I have never even used the sidewalk,” Lynch said. “I don’t like the parking solution, but at the time I felt it was the only thing that could have been done to solve the issue.”
While current changes have already begun, including restriping the parking lots, adding 44 spaces near the basketball courts and 10 parallel parking spaces and improving signs, House- Myers said there could be future changes as well.
“I don’t know where we’ll go as we get further along except that one of the things we are thinking about is that only juniors and seniors can park,” he said. “At some time that’s going to have to be discussed as student population increases.”
There are plenty of parking spaces now, he said, but that could change in the future and simply paving more spaces isn’t an option due to lack of space.
One change that may never happen, even though many students support the idea, is designated class parking areas.
“If we move into a situation that we have to develop a parking bureaucracy, then students would have to fund that bureaucracy and I’m reluctant to go there,” House-Myers said.
“That whole idea just seems to conflict with the mission of the school itself, which is inclusion and heterogeneity,” he said.
“If we suddenly create a senioronly lot there’s going to be conflict.
We would solve one minor problem and create multiple major problems, and that’s what I’m afraid of.”
The task force will reconvene in the spring to evaluate the success of the current changes and discuss the possibility of future options.