By Anne Liberko
Cars hurry into the school in the morning and flee in the afternoon. The demanded use of the middle school and high school driveway off of Palisades creates congestion. With a single bottleneck entrance to the school, traffic can reach a slow crawl. Cars are bumper to bumper lining the drive to and around the schools. Many students and parents become impatient waiting an average of 15 minutes for the traffic to clear up.

Emma Bradbury, a junior, is upset that “The school tries to blame students for being late, when I have to wait behind a line of people.” Students can never fully anticipate the wait of the congestion and think it is unfair to receive a punishment for something the school needs to fix. Students, parents and staff are eager to get out of school property as soon as possible and are sometimes unwilling to share the space.

“Getting out of the normal [west] side parking lot takes forever and it’s impossible” said junior Jaylee DeLancey. She said drivers refuse to let cars back out “so you just have to sit in your car and wait.”

Mickey Hines, a junior, believes that another way to prevent accidents at MVHS would be for drivers to “take a lot more care of the drive heading down to the school.”

On snowy days, parking spaces become limited since “no one knows where the spots are in the winter because you can’t even see the parking lot,” said Emma Bradbury.

Due to demanding schedules of early practice and early bird classes, students need to arrive early at school and often find that the lot has not been plowed. “When the cheer girls are coming to morning practice it’s a pure ice sheet,” Jaylee, a cheerleader, said. Jaylee was hit once in the parking lot on her way to 6:30 a.m. practice because the roads where not plowed and the other driver couldn’t stop.

Junior Regan Kelley, an early bird student, said that she wants to be able to get into the parking lot safely. “Sometimes I don’t feel like I can because I’m sliding everywhere and scared I’m going to hit someone.”

The slippery lots affect more than driving. Senior Mackenna Scofield said she has fallen “many times” in the parking lot after getting out of her car.

For visitors attending athletic events and activities, the parking lot can be a confusing place. People who are unfamiliar with Mount Vernon school parking lots often cause frustration and mayhem for students. “The visitors don’t follow the one way signs so you have to make sure not to hit them,” said Jaylee. Stops signs and one-way signs are often ignored, especially at after school events when visitors attend.

“I was trying to get out of the parking lot and someone was going the wrong way so I had to get into a parking spot to avoid a collision,” said junior Charlie Hunter about a close call he had.

With the new proposal of an athletic complex and auditorium students are hoping to see the availability of more parking. With added parking, Emma Bradbury would like to see a “designated spot for mopeds since they often take up several parking spaces,” and a controlled traffic flow. The proposed layout of the new complex shows an increase of spaces, but doesn’t show a plan for another outlet. The added parking would allow more vehicles onto the property, but the congestion would also increase. Emergency vehicles would have a harder time entering the school during an event if another outlet was not added to the property.

Students hope to see the school take initiative in creating safer roads, whether it’s adding more salt or sand in the winter, plowing a bit earlier, controlling the flow of traffic or even adding a new outlet.