“60 minutes… That’s how long it took many of us to find a parking spot each day last week. Playing chicken in the parking decks is a daily routine that most of us have begun to take for granted. As our administration gracefully guides the construction of a beautiful new university around us, advertising acres of green space, a beautiful new stadium and an exponentially increasing student body, we remain white-knuckled to our steering wheels.”
“

60 minutes…

That’s how long it took many of us to find a parking spot each day last week. Playing chicken in the parking decks is a daily routine that most of us have begun to take for granted. As our administration gracefully guides the construction of a beautiful new university around us, advertising acres of green space, a beautiful new stadium and an exponentially increasing student body, we remain white-knuckled to our steering wheels. If one didn’t know any better, they might start to think our problems were the result of poor strategic planning or a mistake in priorities.

Don’t get the wrong idea. We love our new landscape for learning. Many of us are even willing to risk a $40 ticket just to park in some of that luscious new green space. Out of 50 students who took a recent online survey, the average time spent searching for a parking spot once on campus was around 35 minutes. That’s 35 minutes of unnecessary idling and stop-and-go city driving. Multiply that by the number of commuters jockeying for positions every day, and you start to get an idea of what our carbon footprint looks like as a student body, not to mention the amount of money we waste every day in gasoline.

The added stress caused by this kind of congestion is also unfortunate because it leaves most of the students and faculty who deal with it arguably too worked up to teach or learn effectively, which directly inhibits the primary purpose of our university.

Should parking act as a service to the student body, or should we have to adapt ourselves around a poor parking situation? Should parking decks be the last completed amongst a series of less necessary buildings, like say, for instance… dorms to house students we don’t have the capacity for, or even… a new on-campus stadium right on top of where old parking lots used to be? The situation has been getting worse and worse for years with no sign that anyone plans to do anything about it. Phone calls to Parking Services are a dead-end. The issue is recognizably challenging, but it is still a need that should be consistently anticipated and dealt with in advance.

Those in charge need to take a real hard look into this. They need to find out at any given time how many cars are in cue for a spot and how long it takes each car to find one. They should be aware of the environmental impact the student body is having as a result of emissions, and they should have the ethical standards to view any income they’ve been generating from parking tickets due to this inadequacy as unacceptable.

The bottom line is that the administration should be creating extra room to grow instead of chasing the problem. If students are to be guarenteed parking passes as part of tuition, then we should be provided with an adequate number of spaces.

Good universities focus on great looking buildings, but great universities focus on facilitating a great well-rounded educational experience. After all, the students are the customers here.

“