Student Parking at High Schools

* Re “Student Parking Squeeze Spills Beyond Schools,” May 29:

A minority of selfish teens have caused adults, understandably, to adopt residents-only parking zones near schools. This has created a problem for the majority of teens who are considerate and are already facing a parking shortage. Many adults suggest that the simple answer is for the students to walk to school or to carpool.

I am a teacher and live within two blocks of Dana Hills High School. Upon occasion I walk to school, but I have too much material to carry on foot. Teens, carrying bigger, heavier books in their backpacks, have the same problem.

As often as not, I must go somewhere after work, so to walk leaves me without transportation. Is there any reason to think that students do not have the same problem? Many of them work after school and have other places to go. The problem with car-pooling is that students may come to school together but have to leave at different times to go different directions. Many do not live close enough to their school to walk. I wonder if the adults who advocate that students walk or carpool follow the same advice for themselves.

MILT ROUSE

Dana Point

*

Would you please let me know if there is some sort of fund I can contribute to to help those poor high school students who are having trouble parking? I was really shaken up to learn that there are families out there already 30 grand in the hole because of junior’s new SUV who now have to fork over an additional $40 a year for a place to put it. Perhaps we could sponsor a shuttle service so that the children might be spared the indignity of walking a quarter of a mile. What do those poor kids do when it rains? Bring an umbrella?

I want to thank you for putting two reporters on this story of tremendous gravity. And by running the article on the front page, perhaps it will receive the national, even international, attention it deserves. Those Europeans will stop laughing their heads off at our car culture when they read that some students are walking a whole quarter of a mile! And even if they still laugh, it’s just because they don’t understand the unique personal trauma suffered by our youngsters during this parking crisis.

JEREMY LEVIN

West Hollywood