Parking LOTS
Every day, around 258 cars out of 465 high school students (Bach 1-3) enter the red gates. This demonstrates that there are around 2 students per car, indicating that the ASFM student population does not take into consideration any eco-friendly initiative.
In the last few years there has been a serious increment in traffic and pollution. Yet, the measures to protect the city and increase fluency in the streets have not been taken.
Chantal Nikkin, founder of Comité Ecológico Interescolar and member of the Citizen Observatory of Air Quality in the Monterrey Metropolitan Area, explained that in 2017 the air was contaminated 220 out of 365 days. “Each of us breathes 8 thousand liters of air a day,” she explained. “Human beings can resist a percentage of polluted air a year, but in Monterrey we are breathing in 90 days all the pollutants our bodies can take in a year.”
A week-long study was conducted to find the number of empty parking spots and the amount of vehicles entering each day.
The results were averaged and it was determined that even through there are 301 parking spots, 258 are occupied on an average basis. The school day with the highest percentage of occupied spaces was Friday (90 percent), since most of the students have afternoon activities.
*Side note: It is important to point out that students who are dropped off at school in this survey were not taken into consideration. If the information of those students was included, the number of cars travelling to school would be much greater.
Amount of cars in high school parking lot each day of the week:
Monday: 250 (51 empty)
Tuesday: 253 (48 empty)
Wednesday: 261 (40 empty)
Thursday: 256 (45 empty)
Friday: 271 (30 empty)
*Parking spots: 301
Mr. Austen, director of the ASFM Green team, gave his opinion on the topic. “Something very surprising that was brought to our attention (from an outside assessment) is that we dedicate more space within the walls of our campus to parking space than we do to learning space. To me, that doesn't seem right”. He provided graphs that clearly demonstrate the amount of cars not in ASFM, but in our whole San Pedro community.
12th grader Alejandro Torre commented: “Everybody supports carpooling, but sometimes it's inevitable and people can’t live without the commodity of having their own car.” He stated that he would decide to carpool only if left with no other option.
Gerardo Mireles, one of the few high school students that actually carpools, explained that “Carpooling is just something simple that everyone can do and it will help reduce traffic a lot.”
For many institutions, some only a few miles away, driving alone to school is no longer accepted. Proposals as forced carpooling at the UDEM demonstrate true caring for the environment.
To address this issue, ASFM’s senior parking will disappear next year. This space will now be reserved for people who carpool. This new initiative will reward and recognize the participants and promote a more eco-friendly lifestyle.
Ms. Lamadrid explained the reasoning behind next year’s new parking system. “It is very hard for me to understand why we aren’t doing anything, why do we have to wait for authority to come and tell us what is going on to start acting. There are many families that come in separate cars, which is not very responsible. We do not have different schedules, we cannot say ‘Ay es que va a salir a otra hora.’ If we changed the Senior Parking to Carpool Parking, it would be much more congruent to the school’s values.”
Personal Commodity VS an Extra Effort
Pros vs Cons of carpooling
Pros:
Less traffic
Save money on gasoline
Contribute to the environment
More parking spaces available
Morning nap on the car
Choosing who to carpool with
Cons:
You are without the commodity of having your car
Wake up earlier to go for your peers
Get home later because you leave others in their house
Commonly, when students are told they’re harming the environment, none take into consideration their actions or wrongdoings. It seems that few high schoolers truly care about protecting the environment, and the majority still prefer their commodity over the health of their