By Kai-Lou Yue and Alok Ganguly
Business Manager and Public Relations Manager
During the 2012-2013 school year, parking was an issue for seniors. This year, the school has taken steps over the summer break to make parking more accessible to seniors. Since the last school year, over 20 parking spots have been added. In order to create these new spaces, three of the four “islands” have been removed from the student parking lot.
Dean Bob Ware, who is in charge of student parking, hopes that removing these islands will improve parking issues in the winter.
“The town is going to have the ability to plow without the snow pile up on the islands, so hopefully there will be no snow banks,” said Ware.
Ware credited Richard Crocker for creating the idea and providing the manpower to remove the islands in the student parking lot.
“Mr. Crocker is in charge of the Westford public schools maintenance, and he is committed to helping with the parking situation,” said Ware.
In another effort to improve the situation, less parking passes were sold this year at Senior Information night than last year. Last year, there were 310 spots, but 320 parking passes were sold. In comparison, this year, there are about 330 parking spaces, but only 250 parking passes have been sold so far.
However, even though Ware expects more parking passes to be sold throughout the school year, he does not think the number of parking passes sold will exceed the number of spaces in the parking lot.
“I think we’re in good shape this year, last year at this point we sold over 300,” said Ware.
New parking spaces have also been added in the freshly paved area next to the softball field. This area is locked, because students are only allowed to park in this new section if there are absolutely no other free spaces in the student lot. If a student cannot find parking, they are to notify the main office so that a custodian can remove the chain.
Also, unlike last year, Ware has not encountered any underclassmen parking at WA or seniors parking in the teacher lot, yet, which has also freed up some spaces.
Ware said,”We want to do our best to have a student lot and a teacher lot.”
The administrative staff is hoping that there will be fewer parking problems this year compared to last year.
“This year, sales are down and parking spaces have increased, so it looks good,” said Ware
