Students have ditched chilly morning cart rides for more comfortable rides in their cars- even though the risk of parking without a pass presents itself. Now that the weather has become progressively more cold as Feb. is here, students have been more apt to drive cars as opposed to golf carts. The golf cart parking lot is seemingly barren. However, upon closer inspection, spots are filled, but these spots are being made up out of gaps in the lot. The car lot, on the other hand, is packed with vehicles.

“It’s gotten so cold outside that I’ve resorted to taking my 1997 Honda Accord,” said junior Claire Oliver. “Putting a few bucks worth of gas in the tank is worth not having to attempt finding a spot near the building on the mornings that I take my cart.”

Somewhere around 600 golf cart parking passes have been sold throughout the 2018-2019 school year, according to assistant principal Keith Haber. However, only 450-500 carts are in the lot each day because students are tending to drive cars. Mr. Haber said, “Our softball parking area is almost empty. We actually encourage students to park down there even though the walk is a little further.”

Weeks prior, after the Dec. winter break, the McIntosh administrators offered more golf cart parking passes, but did not have any available car passes to sell. Because of these recent sales, even more passes are being offered to students due to an availability of parking in the softball lot.

While a problem hasn’t yet arisen from the recent distribution of more cart passes, there is potential. As the weather will inevitably warm up in the months to come, more students will start to park in the cart lot. As there is already an abundance of carts that park in spots that aren’t real spots, an influx of more golf carts will be more hazardous.

Rather than creating spots, students are given the opportunity to park behind the softball field. In previous years, the area was occupied by construction workers and equipment that were working on converting the football field to turf. However, students can now utilize this area without the concern of having to create spots which could potentially block traffic.

Sophomore Gabby White said, “The softball lot is generally thought of as too far of a walk so few students are willing to park down there. For the time being, people are just going to continue creating spots rather than utilizing real ones until the admin cracks down on them.”