Walking to School Won’t Work

* 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. As with many simple answers, this one is flawed.

I am a teacher at Dana Hills High School and live within two blocks of the school. Upon occasion I walk to school, but the problem here is that I have too much material to carry on foot. I simply cannot do it.

To anyone who takes notice, it is apparent that teens, carrying bigger, heavier books in their backpacks, have the same problem. The only ones who do not have big loads are the ones who do not care enough to do their homework.

I have found that 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 carpools is that students may come to school together but may 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. It has been my experience that they do not.

MILT ROUSE

Dana Point

* Why not assign a number of parking stickers equal to the number of available on-school-site parking spaces to those students with the highest grade-point averages, and then ticket those students who park in the surrounding neighborhood?

Students would then have an incentive to improve their grades, surrounding neighborhoods would be free of the congestion problem, and the school districts would not have to devote any of their limited budgets to the provision of more parking lots for students.

ROD FREED

Mission Viejo