For the students of Berkley High School, parking can get complicated. There has always been a lack of spots in the past, but this year, it was limited due to the auditorium add-ons and the construction of the new athletic center. Parking has recently become a sore subject amongst students, due to not nearly enough spots, increased traffic, and unclear parking rules.
The Bear and Auditorium This year, Berkley has been building a brand new athletic center for our student athletes. ‘The Bear’ will be a great addition to the school, but its construction comes with some temporary difficulties. The facility is being built on top of what was previously one of the parking lots offered to students at Berkley. Due to the construction this year, we lost over 100 parking spots. After talking to Principal Meloche, he told us that as of January 2027, we will have gained more parking spots than before what we had this yearWe have also been adding to and remodeling the school’s auditorium. This construction is set to finish by the start of summer, which will then reopen the parking spots lost from the fenced in areas of the construction.
Parking spots gained While the parking availability here at Berkley has decreased, more spots are yet to come. The number of parking spots is roughly half of what it was in the years prior. Mr. Meloche says, “We lost over 150 parking spots with the additions and are now left with close to 150.”
This summer, the construction that is causing the fences to be up in our current parking lot will be done. This means that the fences will be taken down, giving more space for parking. In addition to this, more fences on Catalpa that are also up due to construction will be taken down, opening up even more spaces.
Additionally, when ‘The Bear’ construction is completed, more spots will be opened up to students. Mr. Meloche states that it is “slated to open in January of 2027, and when [it] opens, we’ll have more parking there than we used to have before”. This will have the largest impact on parking availability here at Berkley.
Traffic As a result of limited parking in the lot, there have been more people parking on the streets surrounding Berkley high. These streets mainly include Berkley, Henley, Sunnyknoll, and Oxford. Because of this, there has been a large increase in traffic surrounding the school. At the beginning of the year, the city closed off Berkley street for parking in hopes of decreasing the traffic. The closure of parking on Berkley just moved the cars to different streets expanding the area that the cars take up. While it did help with traffic on Berkley, the streets are still crowded and slow-moving, and the only thing that can fix it is more parking lot openings.
Parking Passes In previous years, Berkley had parking passes, a pass to be able to park in the lots. Priority was given to seniors, then to juniors, and then to sophomores. They recently got rid of them in 2024, and with the construction, they won’t be around next year either, but will be enforced in 2027-2028.
The Drama The drama involving Berkley sophomores and juniors revolves around the unwritten rules (most) Berkley students follow. The idea is that seniors get priority parking, meaning that the spots closest to the school belong to them, and then,, following that, the other spots are left for juniors and a smaller number of sophomores. However, because the seniors are released from school a month before everyone else, their “spots” are left to whomever. In past years, juniors have claimed that those spots now belong to them, being at the top of the food chain and the oldest students. Some sophomores argue that these spots are for anyone in the final month of school because there aren’t any seniors. The debate has escalated in recent years, and despite who you think is right or wrong, Principal Meloche addresses the issues by saying, “Because there are no parking passes right now, anyone can park in the lot,” and that an alternative would just be to “shut down the lot”.
Overall, there have been many ups and downs (mostly downs this year) in parking availability at Berkley. While it may seem like we are in the hard part of it now, it will be over shortly, with more spots available than ever before. With more availability on the way, we are on the road to recovery.
