By: Odessa Marcos and Paloma Vital
As most students know, the parking situation at Redwood is a dire one. With almost 2,500 students on campus, we have less than 200 parking spaces available for all the students on campus.
With the problem worsening due to the population increasing, students have needed to park in places that aren’t parking spots.
The parking epidemic has caused local businesses to complain to the police station about the problem and Redwood students were given short-notice to find a different place to park their vehicles.
On February 27, any students parked in the two-hour parking lot on Conyer and Acequia for more than 2 hours, were ticketed. This also applies to cars parked in the dirt in this lot as well.
Mrs. Barba-Tepper, Redwood’s assistant principal, thinks students are lucky, as a police officer tipped off the school about this change. “This week, parking enforcement has decided to do their job. I feel we’ve all felt that in the previous months it’s been relaxed…” said Mrs. Barba-Tepper.
The lot on Conyer and Acequia was ticketed heavily and many of the students who hadn’t been warned were caught off guard by the traffic violation. Even the administration at Redwood has had an issue with the parking,
Téa Konishi ‘21, was one among many students ticketed, said “I got it in the parking lot behind the English buildings, I was parked in two hour parking.” Said Konishi
The students were sent Remind in an attempt to warn them, but it was specifically for students parking in the dirt. “In the remind, it only said the dirt, so I didn’t think it meant the parking lot too.” Konishi said.
Officer McWilliams, Redwood’s campus police officer, had to park on the sidewalk because there was no parking after the local police station started to ticket. “Even in the general downtown area, parking is an issue,” said Officer McWilliams.
He predicts that parking structures in the future will be the solution to the parking epidemic. “Maybe somewhere down the road, a parking structure. I used to be the main officer downtown, and I was in many meetings where they talked about needing a new parking structure.” Said Officer Mcwilliams
The structure on Bridge and Acequia isn’t very effective with the parking now since the population has increased so much. Officer Mcwilliams continues to try and find a solution for the parking problems.
Some of the students who were ticketed were very upset about the lack of warning that came with the traffic violations.
Brie Gutirrez ‘21, was also given a ticket, without the clarification of where to park. “I got a text that said not to park in the dirt, so I didn’t park there on purpose. I parked in the actual spots, and when I came back I saw the ticket.”
The miscommunication between the officers and Redwood’s administration caused many of the tickets and a lot of the students felt like they didn’t get the information they needed.
Overall, Redwood’s parking situation proves time and time again that the growth of the campus is continuing to the point where there is no parking available to students or staff. What will happen next? Will there be a parking structure in the future? Redwood will have to wait to find out.
Tags: admin, downtown, officers, parking, parking problems in school, Parking tickets, population, students, tickets