Parking solutions
Parking on campus sucks. The answer is to not drive to school every day
Have you noticed people still can’t find parking on campus? I think you have. Last year, everyone was raving about a new parking complex on campus, not only so we finally have a chance to park near our classes, but also so the university can turn a higher profit on parking passes. Admittedly, eyes everywhere are caught up in the books right now, but I think I’m fairly observant for at least some hours a day and I haven’t noticed any large parkades springing up in the vicinity. There is, however, some new-looking fancy dirt to park on by the Kinesiology Building.
Where happened to the plan?
I’m not sure but in some respects it might as well be out the window, or in Jamaica, in light of other university issues that concern funding and the precious cash we are increasingly asked to spend for our education. The students’ union seems to be occupied with politics. Parking might not necessarily be top-of-the-list of their priorities, but it’s worth giving some thought.
Found in the line-up at the coffee shop are various arguments made to suggest that investing in increased parking space is an unproductive waste of space, but in general we’re usually lazy or preoccupied enough with ‘schoolwork’ to ignore this. This is fortunate since it allows us to concentrate upon the everyday, business-as-usual bullshit of paying a gray metal meter for the usage of empty space instead of repaying any of our surmounting debt or purchasing a comfortable, double-ply toilet paper.
If you park at a meter, especially if you don’t insert enough shiny pieces of your time, you are therefore creating employment. If you park without a pass you are, likewise, doing as much good. Your university maintains an array of well-trained parking enforcement officials who fight together endlessly everyday to uphold your legal right to pay hefty fines for coming to class, or work, and trying to sneakapark. These organized enforcers of the status quo have their own fleet of vehicles and two-way radios on their vests such that they may be appear effectively hollywood-esque in their patrolling. Probably even health insurance-sponsored corrective eye surgery for examining the, you know, license plates and such.
But really, I guess everyone is benefitting from parking services. What the parking authority does, besides siphon our dwindling resources, is effectively discourage parking on campus. This is good for us for a couple reasons: it opens up more parking spaces for those who are particularly desperate to do so, and also gives us all good reason to use public transit and/or our own legs (rather than thousands of fuel burning machines) for locomotion.
God is not in the business of restocking our precious dinosaur bones. The more we can walk, bike, or use public transit to get places we need to be, the better. It is not only for ourselves but also for each other and the environment. When you walk instead of driving you make yourself healthier, you create a lot less pollution, and you make an impression on others around you. They’re all sure to say “hey, look at that guy. I think, like, that retro dance action thing he’s doing is what they used to call ‘walking,’ remember?”. Not only individually, but together, these two factors can easily contribute to bettering the community – whether you believe me or not – and generally making the world a better place to live in. Plus it saves money, if you have some, and the planet.
Dustin Christianson
Contributor
