Student and staff parking at the secondary campus have undergone significant changes over the past several years, beginning with the construction of the new high school in 2021. The most recent issue to interfere with student parking is the ongoing construction on the West Falls Church Metro parking lot.

When the new school building was built, construction on the previous parking lot had not yet been completed. Once construction began in 2022, seniors were moved to the trapezoid lot across from Mary Ellen Henderson and to the current senior lot in front of Meridian.

Following these new installments, students organized a walkout in protest that the school lacked sufficient student parking. In response, the school granted a larger percentage of unused parking spaces to both juniors and seniors. The 2023-24 school year brought even more changes, and the student parking privilege was given only to seniors. However, juniors could park at the adjacent Virginia Tech parking lot for a daily fee.

However, in the 2024- 25 school year, the Virginia Tech campus was acquired by HITT Construction, which brought about the demolition of its parking lot.

This change reallocated students to the West Falls Church Metro parking lot, an option many chose, especially athletes with practices both before and after school.

Most recently, EYA developers and Rushmark Properties have begun construction at the West Falls Church Metro, which is aimed at expanding the current lot to 1 million square feet of a mixed-use space. The construction will occur in four phases, occurring over the span of roughly three years.

This development has created challenges for many students, as juniors and seniors relied on the neighboring parking lot.

“The construction made parking at the metro lot a lot more complicated because we had to park in the garage, which was more crowded and a much longer walk,” senior Annika Wolf explained.

In response, Meridian partnered with nearby West Falls development in December to provide a monthly student parking rate until the end of the school year. 100 spots on floors 4 and 5 were made available to students per an announcement made by Principal Peter Laub.

“When we were given the option to park at the West Falls Church garage behind the senior lot, it made the situation a lot better because it’s closer and no one else really parks there, so it takes a lot of the parking stress away,” Wolf said.

While the secondary campus has faced parking challenges, it originally underwent significant planning, and stakeholders considered potential future issues with nearby developments.

In 2017, a Perkins Eastman feasibility study recommended 320 parking spaces, based on the size of the school and the size of other schools nearby.

“To the best of my knowledge, unless things change, there are currently 400 spaces on the campus site,” Falls Church City Council member Marybeth Connelly noted.

However, the study compared Meridian to schools in areas significantly different from Falls Church. It included Dunbar High School, located in DC, which benefits from a much more efficient public transportation system than Virginia.

Additionally, Montgomery County Youth Cruiser Cards, iRide for Arlington Students, and Fairfax County Student Bus Pass are initiatives in partnership with regional transit operators. Falls Church City does not have such programs in place to incentivize public transportation.

“You should go to places like DC or Philadelphia or New York and look at urban schools, because that’s essentially where we are right now…and so it’s just like a mindset,” Principal Laub noted. “It helped me think, this is an urban campus, not a suburban campus. We don’t have big open fields and large parking lots and long drives to get to our school. We’re right here in the thick of it all.”

However, for those who are unable to park or take the school bus, the option for public transportation, like urban campuses have access to, is not an efficient option for students at Meridian.

“I know that Dr. Noonan had made statements publicly that were essentially like, it’s a small town. Kids can walk, kids can bike, and there are buses,” Principal Laub highlighted.

Students cannot rely solely on school buses because a large number of students participate in athletics. According to the Meridian Athletics Department, 57% of students participated in fall and winter sports this year alone. Last year’s number was around 79%, which included 8th graders.

“As someone who relied on parking because of sports, I had no choice but to keep driving after the construction began. The change to the metro garage meant a more crowded lot, a longer walk to school, climbing a wall, and jumping a couple of fences,” junior Aldyn Friesen said. “As a result, I often found myself rushing or being late because of unexpected circumstances I couldn’t change. The new parking garage provided a great solution, and I feel like the school really heard the students when we said we needed change.”

Parking challenges will continue to affect students as businesses urbanize the city, traffic impedes on the productive flow of cars, and the school division continues to expand, as pointed out by Principal Laub.

“The school division made a very conscious decision to have the parking lots they have…but we’ve grown, yeah. We’ve added students, staff. Like we’ve grown a lot since then, and that’s the challenge, and we’re expected to grow more.”