Chaos in the BSM Parking Lots

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Courtesy of the @bsmbadparking Instagram

Students are struggling with the parking lot rules.

The parking lots at BSM have been rather chaotic since the start of the school year with problems ranging from students failing to display parking permits to snow obstacles in the parking lot. The most recent and significant issue is overcrowded parking lots.

BSM has found that students and teachers are failing to properly display their BSM issued parking permit which causes problems for administrators needing to identify who owns a certain vehicle. Joe Creer, who controls traffic in the parking lots in the mornings and afternoons, explains the struggles with parking passes. “We’ve had some incidents with cars that got hit and we can’t identify the owners because they’re not registered with the school or displaying their proper permit,” Creer said.

Another problem is overcrowding caused by sophomores and juniors parking in the senior lot when they aren’t supposed to. When sophomores and juniors park in the senior lot, it leaves no space for other seniors, forcing them to overflow into the main parking lot. This takes room away from school visitors, teachers and staff. Many seniors are frustrated with the current situation. “It really ticks me off in the morning because I’m really lazy and I don’t want to walk from the junior lot when there’s nowhere to park,” senior Ben Thompson said.

If they can’t figure out where to park then they just won’t be able to park here

— Cami Dahlstrom

Another struggle within the parking system at BSM is that students are parking in spots they shouldn’t be. There have been several occasions where students are parked in spots that are reserved for the school. “Everybody’s just parking in places that say spirit shop parking, visitor parking; no one’s respecting where they should be parking,” Creer said.

Finally, when BSM has their parking lots plowed after a snowfall, the snow is piled into mounds in the corners of the lots. These mounds grow massively throughout the winter and end up taking up a number of parking spots, limiting parking even more. “The snow piles are pretty annoying. They take up a lot of space making it even more crammed,” senior Mitchell Dokman said.

BSM is implementing a three-strike system to respond to these problems. This targets sophomores and juniors who violate parking rules, who will first get a warning, followed by detention and loss of parking privileges for a week, and then loss of parking privileges for the year. “If they can’t figure out where to park then they just won’t be able to park here,” assistant principal Cami Dahlstrom said.

BSM also has a plan in place for cars that fail to display their proper permit. Since unauthorized vehicles may pose a safety risk for the school, BSM has decided to start towing unauthorized vehicles. This may include student or teacher vehicles who fail to display their permits. “I have a private towing company that charges $380 and that will be upon the student because we gave you many warnings through emails, nightly news, and intercom,” Creer said.

BSM wants to remind all students, staff, and visitors which parking lots should be used. The north building and Haben lots are strictly for faculty and staff with each parking space assigned to a certain faculty or staff member. The main lot is reserved for visitors, faculty, staff, and seniors. The first three rows are reserved for faculty and staff and the last row is reserved for seniors who overflow from the senior lot. Sophomores and Juniors are to park in the Beth El Synagogue lot. If students have lost or never got a parking permit, they are to let their assistant principal know and will be able to get a new one.