There are many places to park at Hackley, from Alumni Drive, the new Allen Center for Creative Arts and Technology (often referred to by students as CCAT) parking lot, and Pickert lot. Students have varied opinions on which area is their favorite to park. This could depend on accessibility, proximity to school, or how easy it is to park there.

Sophomore Nora Esposito has driven since the beginning of her sophomore year. During the winter, she doesn’t play a sport, so she parks at the CCAT.

“During the winter season, I like to park at the CCAT because it’s closer to my first period classes and there’s always a spot in the morning. It’s also easy to park there because there aren’t a lot of people there in the mornings,” said Nora.

However, Nora does play lacrosse during the spring season. During the spring season, she parks in the Pickert Lot at the Johnson Center.

“When it’s lacrosse season, I park in [the Johnson lot] because it’s closest to the field, and I can keep my clothes in there, and put my sports bag in Johnson,” Nora said.

Although Nora parks in the Johnson lot when she plays lacrosse, her overall favorite is the CCAT.

“If I could park in CCAT during lacrosse season, I would. It’s not convenient for me to walk down and then drive up to Johnson. But I like the CCAT because I get to walk downhill after my classes,” Nora said.

Senior Fiona Pedraza is a lifer at Hackley; therefore, she has parked everywhere during her time at Hackley.

Among the many places to park, the CCAT, Johnson Center, Pickert Field lot, and Alumni Drive, everyone has their respective opinions.

“The safest place to park is probably Pickert Lot because it’s very reliable. Although going around that turn, if there’s another car coming from the other side, you can easily go over the curb, which is not great. But I feel like, for a new driver, the end of Pickert lot is the safest,” Fiona said.

Most seniors park on Alumni Drive, which happens to be convenient and close to most buildings.

“The bottom of Alumni is most convenient, but parking in the middle of Alumni can be hard if you have to parallel park. Depending on the time of the year, I park in different places. During the lacrosse season, I park at Johnson because it’s closer to the fields. But during the winter, I like to park at Alumni because I do P.E.,” Fiona said.

Bobby Aldrich is the Director of Operations and Campus Planning. As an expert in the different parking lots, he has varying and similar opinions to the students.

“I think the easiest, and probably the safest place to park would be up at the Pickert Lot. It gets people off the roadway, and it’s the least congested lot. I would also say it’s the most accessible, since it doesn’t have any assigned spots,” Mr. Aldrich said.

The new CCAT is designated for seniors to park, but the Johnson Center is mainly used by the juniors.

“From my perspective, I think both the ACCAT and the Johnson Center are available. With the Allen Center, because we’re hosting so many events there, that’s really the lot we use when we have parents on campus and events during the day, so we can’t have a lot of students parking down there. But I do know students are parking down there now,” Mr. Aldrich said.

Many parking lots at Hackley are prohibited for students to park in, such as the Admissions Lot, the Lower School Lot, and the Middle School Lot.

“The middle school and lower school lots are off limits because the spaces are numbered spaces, assigned during the day. The issue about students parking in the visitor lots is that they’re not visitors. We have so many events here for admissions, so there are a lot of days where almost every space on this campus is full,” Mr. Aldrich said.

Earlier this month, Mr. King and Mr. Aldrich announced that they are coming up with a master plan for the next ten to fifteen years, and parking is a major part of that plan.

“We will know by the end of this year what the future of parking looks like. We know we need more parking, but the plan will determine where and how much,” Mr. Aldrich said.

Overall, parking is a major part of the daily life of Hackley students; expanding it will only make student life more seamless.