Batavia High parking woes spilling into neighborhood

The completion of parking lot work at Batavia High School can't come soon enough for residents of Pitz Lane.

The one-block street, the first east of the school's Main Street side of campus, has been inundated the last few weeks with parkers who either work at, or have sports practice, at the school.

Besides making it a narrow squeeze to drive down the street, parkers have blocked residents' curbside mailboxes.

The post office won't let carriers walk to those boxes. So people haven't been getting their mail.

One resident finally posted handmade signs on their mailbox, asking people to leave a 10-foot clearance.

Last week Batavia police were out "baby-sitting" Pitz at 7:30 a.m. and 2 p.m., telling drivers not to park in front of the mailboxes, according to Mayor Jeff Schielke and Police Cmdr. Gregory Thrun.

During the school year, you can only park on Pitz for two hours between 7 a.m. and 3 p.m. So any students or teachers who try to park there all day today run the risk of finding a $5 parking ticket on their windshield when they return to their cars.

"We may end up discussing what we want to do about blocking mailboxes and looking at the fine structures if this thing continues to go on to the degree that it has," Schielke said.

"I would like to think it is over with, but when we bring the mother lode out there this week ..."

The high school will be under construction for the next two years. The north parking lot, on the Wilson Street side of the building, is designated for student parking. It was rebuilt this summer. The south lot, off Main, is a faculty and visitors lot. It's being expanded and won't be finished until Sept. 18, school officials estimate. Until it is, faculty is to park in the north lot. One hundred and one students with permits will also be able to park in the north lot. Another 140 students with permits have been assigned to park in the lot of the empty Siemens-Furnas factory, about a quarter-mile east of the school, on Wilson, until the south lot is finished.

Visitors are allowed to park at Engstrom Family Park's lot off Millview Drive, across from the high school's front entrance. It is about a quarter-mile walk to the school's front door.

Two hundred spaces are being added to the school's lots.