Widespread disappointment with campus parking

First off, the walk to the 11th street lot is sketchy and unsafe. I’ve had many people -especially women- tell me how uncomfortable they feel walking to the 11th street parking lot at night without street lights or a sidewalk. That's why you barely see any cars parked there. People with cars either park on Euclid or illegally park in the 9th street or Winbig/Grier parking lot because they aren’t full.

Since these lots aren’t full, you’d think they’d be pretty easy to get into, but you have to wait until your second semester here if you want to park anywhere other than Euclid or 11th (this also applies for transfer students) and if you are old enough to get to park somewhere else, you have to pay $100. I would understand this if parking was limited, but it's really not.

If you actually look at some of these parking lots, you see many empty spaces on a daily basis and some of the cars that are there, don’t have the right stickers. Sometimes people just park there for a little bit, but a lot of times I’ll see cars with the wrong stickers there for days on end, which means they’ve just decided to park there because they can. This shows that not enough people have cars to fill up all the lots, or at least, not enough people want to pay the $100 to park in the lot.

Perhaps there’s not a better system for what we have now, because I certainly can’t think of one. But what really bothers me is the system of parking for Greek houses and the other themed-houses on Broadway. People who live in the Intercultural house and really don’t have any other choice of parking other than that lot, still have to pay the parking fee. There certainly is not enough people in that house to warrant that kind of cost. I talked to the RA of the IC house, and she said that even she has to pay to park. I find it ridiculous that people whose job it is to stay in a house still have to pay. RAs already get treated by trash by the college (but that's a story for another time), the least that could happen is that they get to park for free.

Those who live in Greek Housing also kinda get screwed by the college. Not only do they have to pay several hundred dollars to be in their sorority or fraternity, but then they also have to pay an extra $100 to park in a parking lot that no one else should be parking in anyway. Others may agree or disagree about whether or not we should have to pay to park on campus, but I think that if you’re parking in a lot designated for the house you live in, you shouldn’t have to pay and it should be included with housing costs.

Jacob Duncan - Contributing Writer