Roger Steele
Grab it!
Every upperclassman at Austin high knows the complicated, messy story of parking at Austin High. Whether fighting off trail runners or curious tourists, Austin High real estate is a hot commodity. It seems everyone in the city will wake up at the crack of dawn and fight tooth and nail to park in close proximity to the Hike and Bike or Ladybird trail. This year, things have switched up. The 2025-2026 school year brings a new system for student drivers at Austin High. As an attempt to combat the chaos of spot findings, several changes have been made.
This year, instead of hanging parking passes, each car dashboard is embellished with a small square sticker. These stickers are each a different color, establishing which part of the Austin High campus a student is allowed to park inside. Green stickers correlate to the East Lot, more commonly known as the “Junior lot.” Orange stickers give vehicles the ability to park along the road, whether by the lake or directly in front of the school.
Brown stickers allow students to park in the senior lot, many of whom have a reserved “Senior Spot.” The only way to have a “Senior Spot” in one’s name was by winning a lottery. Senior student August Young was lucky enough to obtain one of these coveted spots. Young states that “he has been fighting the parking system for the past few years” and it feels great to have the security of a designated parking spot. According to Young, the Senior lot should somehow be expanded in order for more people to experience this same luxury. Failure to conform to the color-coded system results in a semi-permanent, neon green warning sticker plastered on the driver’s window. Cars can also be booted- a more severe consequence in order to force organization..
Not everyone has had the same experience of guaranteed parking every day. Others note that despite paying for a parking pass, they have struggled to secure a spot each morning. Senior Clay Maxwell has an orange sticker, allowing him to park on the street. However Maxwell explains that despite paying for a sticker, he has had many difficulties with finding a parking spot each day. Junior Divya Panicker shares this more negative perspective, saying that she “has to get to school 45 minutes before school starts every day or else she will not find a spot.” She continues to address this issue, elaborating that the new parking system may also be affecting student safety. She has witnessed and heard about significantly more instances of driving incidents surrounding the Austin High campus this year compared to other years. “I feel like students are a lot more rushed to find a good spot and not be late to class, so they end up really reckless in their driving,” continues Divya. Many students have reached the consensus that with a 63% increase in parking pass prices compared to the previous year, they should be guaranteed a spot.
Overall, the transition to a new school year, and new policies are bound to cause discomfort to some. Giving time for the parking system to settle in and allow students to become accustomed to the new rules may ease the recent uprising against the policy. Afterall, Austin High’s urban campus has made parking a persistent issue for many years now. This issue was not simply uncovered this year. Precious real estate next to the urban center of Austin accentuates the difficulties of parking for students. The new parking policies were put into place as an attempt to relieve parking struggles for students. Only time will reveal the truth about their long term impacts.