Opinion: We Need More Campus for Parking
This article was featured in our Fall 2019 Print Edition. Copies are available throughout campus. Visit our Facebook, Instagram, or Twitter for location details.
It is high time that someone spoke up about the terrible parking situation on campus. We are in the middle of an epidemic, and it has become clear that the university has stretched itself too thin with the increase in admittance of new students. After having a Lot 50 permit for a glorious two-and-a-half years, I am being exiled to the perimeter of campus so that the greedy money-grubbing university can make more parking spaces for 25×25 engineering underclassmen with a fancy new garage. I am a senior; I resent change and refuse to suffer the burden of progress that will never benefit me. Liberal arts majors might have the time to frolic to and from their classes, but as an engineering student, I am far too busy to make the 23 minute trek from West Campus Garage to Zachry.
I know that I go to a university with over 65,000 students, but that does not lessen the sting of the lack of abundant parking in the center of campus. I, like everyone else, think that it is my right to park close to all of my classes and not have to walk or use our second-rate bus system.
And what’s the deal with the Campus Master Plan? Taking away parking lots within campus and turning them into green spaces? This hasn’t worked out well for any developed nation so far, and it certainly won’t for a space designed for ambulatory mass movement. We have come far enough as a nation that we no longer need to pander to the hippies and urban design specialists that insist alternative forms of transportation are the most efficient and environmentally friendly way to navigate a dense urban environment. We are Americans, and we love our cars, comfort, and personal space. If I don’t want to bike to class, I shouldn’t have to.
To top it all off, paying for parking is the biggest scam of all time. I pay tuition here, and I should be able to park wherever I please. Tuition is so expensive, and you spend it all willy-nilly on educator’s salaries, construction, student services, and more. Why can’t it go towards my individual lot for my individual car that I individually benefit from? I resent the idea that space on campus shouldn’t be free, and I despise that the administration is surreptitiously encouraging me to explore other methods of getting to class.
If I do have one positive thing to say about the heinous parking system on campus, it is that I have gained an exceptional amount of Twitter clout for complaining about lots being full, specifically Lot 100. For every 15 minutes I spend circling sections A-C and willfully ignoring D-G, I can gain roughly 1.3 followers if I play my cards right.
—Ring Chunks & Mad Chaco
