Community Corner

Morristown Senior Seeks Compromise on Student Parking

Town, school and Morris Plains teen will meet to find a solution to two-hour parking rule resulting in tickets.

Parking in Morristown is a constant tug-a-war to balance the needs of residents, businesses and institutions. After hearing feedback from residents, the town set two-hour parking limits on the residential streets surrounding Morristown High School.

However, because of the limited parking in the high school’s lot, students parking in these surrounding neighborhoods have accumulated quite a few tickets and fines.

Vincent Leahey, of Morris Plains and the senior class vice president, brought up student concerns to the town council Tuesday night.

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Student Parking

“Recently, we lost the ability to park on Colonial Road, Gallagher Road and Milton Place, which is in addition to losing parking previously on Early Street, Harrison Street and Hazlett Street,” said Leahey. “The two-hour parking ordinances were put into effect (on) … the streets surrounding the high school … really cut into the availability for student parking.”

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He added that of the students he spoke to, there has been about 60 tickets totalling roughly $3000 in fines. Originally he drafted a petition from people in and out of school.

“I got a good response (but) I thought not to present it because I think … right now the (ordinance) puts students in a hole where we don’t have a place to park, but to take the ordinance away would put the residents in a hole … I was thinking more along the lines of a compromise.”

Leahey brought up the issues that residents had with people parking in the streets, such as:

  • “Students were parking improperly, such as more than six inches from the curb, blocking driveways, but there are ordinances that address those things where students can be ticketed or towed.”
  • Littering
  • Crowded streets making it hard to drive.

A Possible Solution

“I know that a solution is to park in town parking, where students are allowed to buy discounted parking for a town garage … but these parking garages are not close to the school and during inclement weather, it’s not very convenient,” he said, adding that students are “working or volunteering and don’t have money to pay $200 a year to park their car to go to school.”

Leahey volunteers for the Morristown EMT and uses a car to get there after school.

“There are many people like me who volunteer, play sports or work after school and they need their car.”

Leahey did offer a suggestion to the council on how to fix this.

“I thought about those problems and the solution I came up with is having one side of the street parking for students,” he said adding that off-street parking could switch between odd and even days to make it fair for residents.

Councilman Stefan Armington said that Leahey summed up “all the problems that have been addressed for residents” and that a compromise is best.

“It has been unfair to the students and it has pushed them farther and farther away. And it’s unfair to the residents so a compromise is needed,” said Armington. “At this point, the problem is worse for the residents because it’s all the students that don’t park in the high school parking lot, park in the residential area.”

He added that he, Mayor Tim Dougherty and Principal Ethel Minchello are setting up a meeting to address this and asked Leahey “to participate as the student representative … I think we can come up with some compromise.”


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