At area high schools student drivers are at war with neighbors living on nearby streets.
By: Jeff Milgram
Ever since the days of the Andy Hardy movies, few things have been more American than a teen-ager driving to school and then going out for a burger and a malt after classes.
That was then, this is now:
• At Princeton High School, 140 student drivers compete for 21 parking spaces. Those who can’t find a space in the school lot park on surrounding streets. More than 150 residents who live near PHS signed petitions demanding an end to students parking in front of their homes. The Borough Council president threatened to hold up an additional parking lot for students at PHS until the Princeton Regional Board of Education explained its parking policy. He relented, and the borough engineer approved the parking lot.
• The Montgomery Township Committee and president of the Board of Education got into a verbal duel over the problem of parking at the high school. The school board president said the district may pave over a remote, muddy parking area at the school’s tennis courts, which should improve the situation. The Township Committee has approved an ordinance that limits parking on nearby Westbury Court to two hours, but tabled, possibly until later this summer, an ordinance that would give police the authority to ticket students who park at the school without a permit.
• Neighboring Hopewell Township was ready to ticket students when — in a rare display of cooperation — residents and students both pressured the Township Committee to table an ordinance that would have banned parking on both sides of Morningside Drive and Morningside Court. Mayor Marylou Ferrara said the township may offer the school land to build a parking lot and hopes the situation can be resolved before September. “A lot of people said, ‘Let the kids take the bus.’ That might have worked when I was a kid, but Hopewell is 62 square miles … We want to find something that will work for everyone,” she said.
What is it about teen-agers driving to school that gets people so riled up? Why do residents and municipal officials find fault with a rite of passage that they probably went through at one time?
Or is it simply a problem of too many students driving, and not enough parking spaces on school grounds?
Despite the tension between residents and municipal officials on one side and school administrators and students on the other, there seems to be evidence that the problem can be solved when people speak to each other, not scream at each other.
Princeton High School Principal John Kazmark believes the problem is a combination of too many cars, too few parking spaces. But the problem is also one of location — student parking becomes an issue when high schools are located in built-up areas, or areas that are being developed.
“There are some things that are exacerbating the problem for us,” Dr. Kazmark said. “Our high school — the location is smack dab in the middle of town.”
Other high schools, such as the two in the West Windsor-Plainsboro School District, are built on large, isolated plots of land away from residential areas, and there is sufficient student parking.
Montgomery and Hopewell Valley high schools, like PHS, are built near residential neighborhoods.
“When the school was built in 1928,” Dr. Kazmark said of Princeton High, “there was only one row of houses nearby.”
The high school is now surrounded by residential streets.
“We have a lot of traffic (in and out of the high school). It’s almost like a shopping center. But when you build a shopping center, you build parking,” Dr. Kazmark said.
“In Princeton, where parking is so at a premium, it’s really come to a head,” he said.
Dr. Kazmark said that while cars have changed for the better, there is an increased awareness of pollution that perhaps means driving to school is no longer a guaranteed rite of passage.
“It’s ironic that as cars have become a necessity, we’re becoming more aware of how cars impact on us and the environment,” Dr. Kazmark said.
Princeton Borough Mayor Marvin Reed sees the issue from a different perspective. He believes the parking crunch at PHS is a recent phenomena — until recently most students took the bus to school.
“It’s a sign of current affluence,” he said. “High school students, as soon as they turn 17, get their licenses and drive to school.”
He said the new parking lot at the school will go a long way toward defusing the neighbors’ complaints.
“With the parking lot at the school site, the school system appears to be able to monitor the students — who gets permits, who loses permits, who is responsible for keeping the area neat,” Mayor Reed said.
Linda Romano, president of the Montgomery Township school board, believes the problem is not limited to Princeton and Montgomery. Parking problems can be found wherever there is school overcrowding.
The Montgomery school board policy is clear: Parking on school grounds is limited strictly to seniors. A lottery is held at the beginning of the school year and 135 seniors get permits to park in the parking lot. The others must park at a remote, unpaved area, Ms. Romano said.
A problem arises when juniors, who are not supposed to park at the school, take spaces reserved for seniors, Ms. Romano said. Then, the displaced seniors and juniors who can’t find a space at the school park on Westbury Court, a cul-de-sac with few homes.
Juniors say they need their cars to go to work after school, Ms. Romano said.
“They (the students) don’t have a lot of options,” Ms. Romano said. “And neither do we.”
Residents of Westbury Court see it otherwise. They complain that the students pull in and out of their driveways, park in front of their houses and drive carelessly. Ms. Romano said she knows of no police reports of students doing any serious harm.
“There’s no solution to this parking problem until we build a new high school. That’s a result of the growth in our schools,” Ms. Romano told The Packet last month.
Ms. Romano said that if the problem is bad now, it will be even worse in the next couple of years.
But for now, the Township Committee and school board are working to solve the parking problem, Montgomery Mayor Donald Matthews said.
He said the Township Committee and school board plan to meet at least every other month to discuss a whole host of common issues, including parking at the high school and the construction of a new high school.
“When you don’t talk to each other, you have problems,” he said.
He said residents of Westbury Court wanted the Township Committee to ban parking completely, but had to settle for a two-hour limit.
“It’s a difficult situation,” he said. “What we’ve done is protect the residents of the town. But we feel bad because some of the kids work. … It seems kind of ridiculous that they can’t drive (to school).”
On May 4, residents and students forced the Hopewell Township Committee to take another look at the parking problem at the high school.
Hopewell Valley Central High School is located in a mixed area of residences and open fields, Mayor Ferrara said. Only seniors are allowed to park in the school lot, but despite the addition of 100 spaces in front of the school, parking has been tight for the past few years because of increased enrollment.
Juniors have been parking on Morningside Drive and Morningside Court. But under pressure from residents, the Hopewell Township Committee was all set to ban parking on those two streets between 7 a.m. and 4 p.m., Monday through Friday.
Mayor Ferrara said the Township Committee was persuaded by “really, really responsible students” who had driven to school all year to go to after-school jobs and asked that the new ordinance be delayed.
“We decided not to impose it until September, and hopefully, the police, neighbors, students and school officials will work things out.” she said.
“We may be in better shape than Princeton. We have land our Public Works Department will pave for a lot,” for the school, Mayor Ferrara said.