As I sat next to my car in the north commuter lot and examinedthe tire I had blistered and blown scanning for a spot, it dawnedon me. Around the time the fourth car nearly hit me withoutstopping to see if they could help, I realized at least ten peoplewere searching for parking spots halfway through a classperiod.
All the talk of a parking problem on campus was true, and Ifinally had a concrete problem.
This is a repairable problem. I see plenty of ugly, dormantgrass on campus that can easily be replaced by nice, new parkinglots.
The other solution is simple. Limit who is parking oncampus.
Perhaps you could require freshmen to write a lengthy essay inorder to have a car on campus explaining why they need a car. Iwonder why some of these new students even need cars on campus.
The reasons for singling out freshmen are simple and logical innature. First, freshmen are the least likely to have off-campusemployment requiring them to travel. Secondly, freshmen do not haveregular access to kitchens, and their grocery shopping trips shouldbe sporadic at best. When freshmen do go out, they usually go tolocations on or around campus.
Finally, freshmen, at least in my experience, tend to use theircars only on weekends to travel home. This only adds to the problemof the lack of students on campus over the weekends, a problem manyfreshmen have blamed on the university itself. Limiting freshmanparking would solve both problems.
Another solution is to simply build more parking structures oncampus around buildings. Perhaps an underground structure would bethe best option for creating these, but with such a small campus,parking structures seem to be the only option for coming anywhereclose to solving this problem.
The community does not want cars in its streets, the students donot want cars in the commuter lots. And guess what? They gave somany freshman parking passes that the stadium lot is nearly full. Ican only image what is going to happen tomorrow when they are allto park in the commuter lots.
I can only imagine I will drive my car to a parking lotsomewhere in Ohio and search for a parking spot in church lots.Donut tire and all.
Write to Will at
wjohargan@bsu.edu
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