Neighbors Frustrated Over High School Students Parking on Their Streets - Reporting from Gaithersburg 3

By Elvan Katmer

Thursday, October 15, 2014

 

Neighbors Frustrated Over High School Students Parking on Their Streets

East Deer Park residents are increasingly frustrated by parking problems in their neighborhood and congestion caused by the new addition to the high school.

In a petition handed to the city council last week, 76 neighbors of Gaithersburg High School asked for permit parking only between 7 a.m. to 6 p.m. to prevent students from parking on several nearby streets.



Gaithersburg High School students heading to their cars on

Tulip Drive after School. Photo: Katmer

City Manager Tony Tomasello said the city will respond within a month. City officials want to make sure that the majority of the people in the neighborhood support the petition before making any changes.

Bruce Wang, who has lived on Tulip Drive near the school for three years, said parking is a constant problem in the area. He worries that it’s a safety issue too.

I am concerned that emergency vehicles wouldn’t get to my property,” he said.

He also said parking load on the streets makes trash pick-up difficult. Residents are not allowed to leave their trash on streets because they are public place, and collectors don’t pick them up from their yards as they cannot go around the cars parked on streets.

According to a spokesman for the Gaithersburg Police Department, 48 citations were issued on mentioned streets from the beginning of 2013 to Oct. 10 of this year for parking violations. He said the road is wide enough that emergency vehicles can get through even if cars are parked on both sides of the street.

Still, not everyone supports new parking restrictions.

Jimmy Jackson, a homeowner on Peony Drive near the school, said he thinks the student parking isn’t as big an issue on that street, which is wider and has a sidewalk.

“I would have no problem if kids wanted to park on this street,” he said.

Others said the problem is not necessarily the students’ fault.

Carol Johnson, a homeowner on Gaither Street, noted that parking signs and curb paintings in the area are not up to date.

“Students are not able to tell where they can park or where they cannot,” she said.

She also suggested a two-hour restriction would be enough to get the students off their streets.

Parking is a privilege at the school, where roughly half of students don’t even have a driver’s license. Despite having 2,200 students, the school has only about 60 spaces in its parking lots for students, according to Deanna Duff, who works in the main office. The addition recently completed eliminated some of the parking spaces as well.

Seniors can use a space if they have an internship or an after-school program for about $38 a semester.

Duff noted that neighbors have called to complain about students parking on their streets, but the school doesn’t have the authority to stop them.

“If there is a legal parking space in the neighborhood, there is nothing we can do to stop students from parking there,” she said.

Other than the nearby streets, students say they would have to park at Gaithersburg city hall, roughly a 40 minute walk.

“You wouldn’t make it to the school on time,” Connor Moy, a junior student said.

Students think administrators who advice to park at the old town parking garage is clueless.

“She [Deanne Duff] has never had to do it, ‘cause she always gets that spot right outside the door,” said Zach Ricardo, another junior student.

Duff said students always have the option to ride the bus.

“Students have adequate access to transportation to the school,” she said. “The fact that they are driving to the school is something they are choosing to do.”