The din of car engines saturates Hull Street as approximately 60 student drivers pull in and out of their parking spaces before and after school. However, the scarcity of Hull Street spots and students’ inexperienced driving creates a hectic and often dangerous environment.
Students who are granted Tiger Parking Permits have access to a variety of parking spots on different streets in Newtonville, yet Hull Street’s proximity to North renders it superior to all of the other parking options in the eyes of students.
“In the mornings, it is like a race to see who parks there first,” said senior Salome Laurence.
Although parking on Hull Street appeals to many students, accounts of minor car accidents, bad parking, and overall low-quality driving on the street have overwhelmed students this school year.
“If you walk on Hull right now you can find five or 10 cars that are six feet from the curb or are crooked. It’s bad,” said senior Ryan Huckabone.
Photos of poorly parked cars are even documented on three popular student-run instagram pages, @nnhsbadparking, @nnhsparking, and @nnhs.bad.parking, featuring humorous captions poking fun at drivers.
According to Laurence, only a few weeks into the school year she had “already heard stories of people getting side-swiped from cars driving past them on Hull Street. Students’ cars are consistently getting little bumps.”
In a situation where new drivers are parallel parking in tight spots, it is inevitable that mistakes will be made and minor accidents will be caused from time to time, according to Vice Principal Amy Winston.
“It takes a while for students to learn how to effectively park on Hull Street. It’s parallel parking which not everybody is excellent at, especially when you are a new driver. I appreciate that students try to get their cars as close together as possible, but that also makes it harder to get out without hitting somebody else’s car,” said Winston.
Along with students who park on Hull Street typically being inexperienced drivers, stacked competition for spots is also a source of unsafe driving on Hull.
Every day before school, 160 students who currently have parking permits battle to secure one of the 50 parking spots Hull Street offers. According to Laurence, “Hull Street is definitely the preferred parking area for students, especially for seniors because they would rather get the better spots that are closer to North.”
If students lose the battle for a spot on Hull, they must park somewhere farther away from the school, which can jeopardize their timeliness in arriving to class.
According to chemistry teacher Peter Hamel, “There’s plenty of parking. It’s just a little farther away. If you plan, then it’s not a problem.”
Some students have resorted to parking in the teachers’ lot out of desperation.
“The staff parking lot on Lowell Avenue is always half empty during the school day, and part of that should be given to students,” said senior Sol Feiguin.
Huckabone added that rather than parking in the staff lot, the solution should be more available parking altogether. “Parking is a problem for both students and teachers, so we should just be getting more parking to help with both sides,” he added.
According to Winston, “The school itself is not responsible for the student parking situation, or the enforcement of acceptable student driving. The number and price of parking stickers, and the location of parking is all decided by the city council, not the school.”
Any enforcement of student parking is handled by the parking and traffic division of the Newton Police because students park on public streets, she added. “I can’t go up to Hull Street and enforce a law. As much as I would like to, it’s not my job.”
Feiguin said, “Kids are forced to go to school to learn. It’s an obligation. So kids should be able to have accessible and safe parking to allow them to commute to school easily.”
