By Alok Ganguly
Managing Editor
As a junior at Westford Academy, one of the things that I am most looking forward to next year is getting a parking pass and being able to drive myself to school instead of riding the overcrowded bus in the morning.
However, there is another opportunity for me to avoid waking up an hour early and getting ready for the bus ride: buying a parking pass off of a senior who won’t be needing it anymore. This age-old tradition is one of the few things that have made the daunting junior year something to look forward to for generations of WA students.
While there is a certain appeal to being able to drive in ahead of the rest of my classmates for a few months of the school year, there is almost no point in continuing the tradition.
Juniors should not buy parking passes because it simply is not practical. Most of the people who are looking to buy passes are the ones who are still riding the bus to school. A school bus pass for the year costs $225, and students are shelling out around half of that price to drive to school for only two months of the year. The cost is ridiculous, especially when juniors can wait for two months of the year and buy a pass at the beginning of their senior year. Many underclassmen also have already arranged parking with a resident of the area, and are renting out parking space in their driveways or yards.
Additionally, there is no need for students to have parking passes once the seniors leave on internship. The parking lot is deemed open campus, and anyone who wants to can park their car there, without the purchase of a parking pass. However, when seniors return to campus at the end of the year for graduation practice and other such events, they do need a pass, and buying or renting one from a senior complicates the process.
The only way to fix the problem of underclassmen parking at WA is for underclassmen to stop buying parking passes from seniors. While not everyone may agree with this, it is actually going to save a lot of students a lot of trouble, and a lot of money. Additionally, there would no longer be any extra back and forth between underclassmen and seniors when parking passes need to be returned to their original owners.
Overall, the parking system at WA needs to be fixed, as many underclassmen are part of a system without realizing that it is impractical and a waste of money. In order for students to realize that there is no need to buy parking passes anymore, underclassmen should be notified of the facts, and that buying a pass is a waste of their time and money.
