OPINION: Why the gravel lot should be an upperclassmen parking paradise
By Olivia Morrison ‘24
Egregious parking offense by a sophomore courtesy of John Harnetiaux
The vast majority of Catlin Gabel School (CGS) Upper School students know the stress of pulling into school not knowing if they will have a spot waiting for them in the gravel lot. It’s hard to know if you’ll be safe, with the lot sometimes filling up as early as 8:23 AM.
The problem is there are just too many students trying to park in the gravel lot and not enough spots for all of them. The roughly 60 spots in the lot are barely enough to hold the cars of drivers from the 11th and 12th grades, let alone another grade.
The suggested solution is to make the gravel lot upperclassmen only and to require sophomores to park in St.Vincent Hospital’s parking garage during the period that they have a license. This solution is detailed in Option 1 in a Parking Memo drafted by the Catlin Gabel Student Association (CGSA).
Senior Oliver Chally, a member of the CGSA parking committee, stated, “There is a degree to which it makes sense that if we can’t all fit in the parking lot, it would make more sense to have more guidelines as to who gets to be in the parking lot so people would know if they have a spot.” He continued, “It makes logical sense that sophomores should be the first to go due to various reasons.”
Other than the obvious point about upperclassman privilege, these various reasons include the fact that many members of the sophomore class will only have their licenses for a fraction of the school year, so many students wouldn’t even be impacted.
Also, as CGS Dean of Students John Harnetiaux stated, “The potential of high occupancy vehicles is much higher in the 11th and 12th grade years.” Most 10th graders would be unable to drive any students other than siblings for the entire school year, per the 6-month new driver rule. This makes the upperclassmen, who can carpool with many other students, the more sustainable option as well.
“A lot of the complaints have been around ‘well I didn’t know I would have to go to St. Vincent’s so I didn’t plan for it, so I was late!’ ” said Chally. But, if there were clear boundaries around who could park in the lot, having to go to St. Vincent’s unexpectedly would no longer be an issue.
This suggestion doesn’t come out of spite for the lowerclassmen, but rather a hope for the whole Upper School student body. The goal is to create a better-functioning gravel lot through a system that will provide benefits that all grades will eventually be able to reap.
Sophomore driver, Lucy Fujita, stated, “I am not going to like waking up an extra couple of minutes earlier to go take the walk from St. Vincent’s, but I think it would be a fair consideration especially thinking about the fact that I’m going to be an upperclassman next year so it’ll be a lot easier for me.”
However, Fujita thinks that opinions in her grade will most likely be split, with many students not wanting to go through the trouble of going to St. Vincent’s. Sophomore drivers of this mindset have declined to comment.
Fujita encourages students to think of the long-term benefits and “look at the positive side of next year being an upperclassman.”
People opposed to this idea may argue that there aren’t even that many sophomores who take up spots in the gravel lot so removing them wouldn’t make much of a difference. But as the year goes on, more and more 10th graders start to drive to school, and the lot fills up faster and faster.
“The gravel lot starts out pretty manageable in the fall and then as more 10th graders are getting their licenses it gets more and more crowded and then that’s when we see all the misbehavior and I start to lose hair trying to track down students,” said Harnetiaux.
Implementing a system where the gravel lot is only for upperclassmen would help to mitigate this issue and stop it from progressing and getting worse as the year goes on.
Others might argue that a solution involving carpool spots (Option 2 outlined in the Parking Memo) would be a better compromise. Although this solution would reserve spots for students who drive a lot of people to school, it still only guarantees spots for a limited number of people. This would leave the same problem of students without carpool spots not having a guaranteed place to park and then resorting to being late to class or parking in the main lot.
This solution was also tried in the past, with carpool spots in the main lot. Harntiaux spoke to this point, saying, “It was this great idea in theory and the implementation of it was just really hard and the students still ended up parking wherever they wanted to park.”
A combination of the two options may be a possibility. “I feel we could just have both. Carpool spots and then the lot is upperclassmen only,” stated senior and CGSA Secretary, Sofia Rutman.
Overall, requiring students to park in St. Vincent’s for their sophomore year is the best solution. It would allow upperclassmen, which there are a higher number of, who carpool more, and who have had their licenses for longer, to have guaranteed spots. Eventually, everyone in the Upper School would benefit from this system.
“I’m hoping for a student-run parking lot where there's everything from the allocation of spaces to mechanisms for accountability, that those are all student-generated,” Harnetiaux stated.
In an upcoming assembly, the options for solutions to the chaos in the gravel lot will be presented. Then, the student body will be asked to vote on the best solution. Rutman said that sophomores should have some “foresight” and think about “what they could have in the future.” I urge sophomores to keep this point in mind when making their decision, and for students to think of the benefits of this solution.
When I was a sophomore, I parked in St. Vincent’s the entire year, as did most other students. I believe that it is a rite of passage for all CGS students to have to park there at some point in their high school careers. I’ve done my time, and now it’s time for the sophomores to do the same.
It is important to note that for any solution, success comes down to student accountability. Any solution could be implemented, but if students don’t follow the guidelines, then we will continue to face the same problems with parking.