n a community where many teenagers are routinely presented with keys to a new car on their sixteenth birthday, the prospect of doing anything to reduce the number of teens driving to high school seems daunting.
But thanks to the brave efforts of some parents and school officials, who cringe both at the traffic problems and environmental insensitivity resulting from the daily high school commute, some attention is finally being focused on a cultural phenomenon that has become a problem for high schools, neighbors and other drivers.
The underlying dilemma is that in a community as affluent as Palo Alto and other Midpeninsula communities, cars have become as much a status symbol for young drivers as they are for many adults. Young people who would have been thrilled a decade ago to get a car as a high school graduation present now find it wrapped in ribbon on the street outside their homes on their sixteenth birthday. And with the busy schedules today's teens keep with sports and other activities, it is easy for parents to justify adding another car to the streets.
With the huge increase in teenagers driving themselves to school every day, many high schools have limited parking permits to juniors and seniors just to address the lack of on-campus parking to handle everyone wanting to drive. That has led sophomores to look for ways around the rules, such as parking in nearby neighborhoods or commercial lots intended for employees or shoppers.
Making matters worse, arriving at school in a car has become the "cool" way to commute, even if it's by getting dropped off by parents and even if the "commute" is but a short bike ride or walk from home.
The combined impacts of teens driving themselves and parents dropping their kids off has led the Gunn community to form Gunn Organization for Alternative Safe Transportation (GO-FAST). With a survey earlier in the school year showing that more than 60 percent of Gunn students arrive at school in a car, the group committed itself to taking on the "car culture" and creating incentives for walking, biking, carpooling or using public transportation.
A few weeks ago a test program was launched by the group that rewarded parents bringing two or more kids to school by providing a special drop-off area.
But at a recent meeting of the Palo Alto City-School Liaison Committee, made up of city council and school board members, school superintendent Mary Frances Callan suggested that tougher action should be considered to further limit students driving to school, such as only allowing seniors to have parking permits. We agree.
While her primary concern is safety, others are as motivated by wanting to help students realize the environmental and quality of life impacts of their driving. Teen drivers add considerable unnecessary congestion to the roads and create havoc in neighborhoods during a half-hour every morning and afternoon.
We strongly support the efforts of GO-FAST, the PTA and Callan to address this issue with proactive steps that will discourage teens and parents from relying on cars to get students to high school.
Issuing parking permits only to seniors and perhaps juniors through a limited lottery system for carpoolers would be a good start, but to be effective school officials will need the cooperation of city traffic staff to ensure neighborhoods or nearby businesses don't become the alternative parking lots. Some form of neighborhood parking restrictions or permitting was suggested by Assistant City Manager Emily Harrison and should be pursued.
Changing the values and expectations of teenagers in a community like Palo Alto can't be done in a vacuum by school and city officials, however. A unified effort by parents to limit unnecessary driving to school and encouraging alternatives is needed, and we are hopeful that by this fall, new policies and initiatives are in place that parents and school neighbors will enthusiastically embrace.
