Whether you live on campus or commute from near or far, by now you are probably aware of the debacle — I mean situation — involving the various parking lots around campus.
If you were too lazy to read the front page news article in this week’s issue, this is the basic gist of the problem: The new apartments have relocated hundreds of juniors and seniors to fight for parking in Lot 6, and because their cars occupy Lot 6 the majority of the day as they scurry from class to class, commuters are left searching for the few spots leftover from the residential parking. Lot 4 parking has been cut down due to the construction of the new Art and IMM building as most know, and these hundreds of commuting students scrambling to get to class on time are now being forced to plan a new schedule to account for the sometimes 30 minutes it takes to find parking at peak class times.
This is a serious problem, and now that tickets have begun to fly onto windshields for lack of valid decal to students parking in lots other than 4 and 6, it’s only going to worsen as people pack into their designated lots, fearful of a fine.
In addition, College house students living on Pennington Road are required to park in Lot 5 instead of their driveways, taking up valuable spaces which could be used for more overflow traffic from the commuter lots.
The obvious question is, “What are College officials going to do to alleviate this problem?” The answer is pretty obvious too. Make more parking available. But where? There is no easy solution as no lots are empty enough to relieve the amount of overflow parking. And let’s think about this: How much fun is it going to be when the tours, open houses, accepted student days, and any other special events roll around where visitors usually park in Lot 6.
No, I do not have a solution for any of this, but the College will hopefully think of something because this is turning into a problem that is beginning to affect students’ academics as they struggle for a spot.
