Berry Street parking lot receives additional spots
(JORDAN DEL VALLE TONOIAN / EYE OF THE TIGER)
Students park in the parking lot on Berry Street south of Independence High School. Over winter break 21 additional parking spaces were striped along with the removal of vehicles and containers that were being stored on the lot.
January 18, 2019
Over winter break, 21 parking spaces, along with an extra 25 foot extension of the parallel parking area were added to the Berry Street parking lot.
Four storage units and three buses were relocated from the south end of the Berry Street parking lot.
Previously, a chain link fence separated this area from the rest of the lot. This fence has been moved back about 40 feet to make room for the expansion.
Junior Michelina Smart believes the additional spots had a positive effect on the student parking situation.
“The parking lot has been a lot better since returning from break. Since there has been more parking spots it is not as chaotic as it normally is, there is a lot more room for students,” Smart said. “People aren’t stressed to get a spot and they aren’t rushing.”
However, senior Oliver Philips believes this new change has added to traffic for students after school.
“After school gets out a lot of people want to get out quick and they don’t want to have to wait in line,” Phillips said. “With more people [parking] there it’s just going to make it harder [to leave] and cause more traffic.”
When the construction of the auxiliary gym begins at the end of this rainy season, RHS is projected to lose 50 parking spaces from the staff lot west of the West 900’s building.
