After complaints from Muncie residents about clogged streets, the Muncie City Council announced Monday that it plans to start enforcing a city-wide parking law on the streets near Ball State's campus.
The city passed a law in 2002 that banned parking on streets with no curbs. However, commuter students have continued to park on these streets, sometimes blocking driveways. Residents want the city to crack down on the students.
Building Commissioner Jerry Friend said that students have plenty of opportunities to park on campus.
"The Student Center parking garage is so under-used, it stinks," Friend said.
Sam Marshall, supervisor for the Muncie City Street Department, said students should use the football parking lot and shuttles, instead of parking on streets around the campus.
If only students could.
Ball State has made it financially impossible for many students to park on campus. The city wants students off its streets. Students are now parking illegally because they have no other option.
The commuter lot in the stadium lot is often full. Students must pay $400 for a restricted pass to the Student Center parking garage or pay $1 a day to park on the top two levels. That's more than $150 to park for an academic year in the Student Center parking garage. Students are already going into debt paying for tuition, book, rent and food. Many cannot afford to buy a parking permit or to park in the upper levels of the garage.
Of course, there is the option of the shuttles. The Muncie Indiana Transit System has allowed students to ride for free. Unfortunately, the routes do not go to all off-campus neighborhoods. MITS is also unpredictable and students have no way of knowing when a shuttle would come.
Because they cannot park on campus, students have taken to the streets. It is understandable that residents would complain when so many students are parking on the streets that the residents cannot get out of their driveways.
However, fining people for parking on the streets might solve one problem, but it will create another one.
Many of the residents themselves need to park on the street. Some do not have alleys to park in behind their homes and others do not have driveways. The law also would prohibit residents from having visitors over if there was nowhere to park an extra car except for the street.
Yes, there is a problem with students parking on city streets around Ball State. But the university and the city need to address the problem of a lack of student parking instead of brushing the problem off onto someone else.
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