Parking can be complicated, especially when it comes to the Vista parking lot. Whether it be the front or back lot, both spots have their pros and cons.

Before COVID-19, junior Piper Snyder used to have her neighbor drive her to school each day. Now with a driver’s license, she officially has a back lot pass.

“Since I’m a junior, I’ve been allowed to have a parking pass, so I park in the back,” Snyder explained, “which I prefer because I thought it would be easier to get to the back lot instead of having to go through all of the busy middle school and high school traffic.”

Parking in the lot also takes strategic planning when it comes to leaving in the morning. If students leave their house too late, they might not be on time to school or get a good parking space.

“I [leave] at seven o’clock in the morning, in the wee hours of the morning, to get to school,” Snyder said. “If I do not leave early enough, I get stuck in line, almost to either whenever the bell rings or right before the bell rings. I think both ways to get to school are really backed up.”

After school, the parking lot can be a nightmare. With all the students trying to get home at the same time, the lines can be quite long.

“Whenever I get off right at 2:50, it can take so long, or it can take no time. [The] longest I’ve had to sit was 30 minutes of traffic, which is ridiculous just to get out. It’s a sit and stop and wait. But on a good [day], it takes five minutes,” Snyder said.

Junior Emily McClenathan drives to the front lot every morning to park. In the mornings, she leaves around 6:30 a.m. to get an ideal parking space. After school, she sits for 15 minutes to try and get out. The key to getting in and out as fast as possible is thinking ahead and being aware of others in the lot.

“I feel the proper etiquette in the parking lot would be to just be nice and allow people to go, we’re all trying to leave,” McClenathan said.

Snyder feels that students, especially new drivers,  just need to be ready for any crazy hassle in the parking lot. 

“[To] people going in, I think you just have to be defensive because you don’t know whenever someone’s going to stop or when someone’s going to back out on you,” Snyder said. “Whenever you’re going out of this parking lot, you got to let people go in front of you instead of just going through the whole time and not letting anybody in front of you.”