It’s your right to know

The parking situation on campus has reached a level of absurdity. Everyday it seems as though there are more parking spots being taken over by bulldozer’s and construction trucks. I know this is mostly due to all the construction and renovating that is going on, but is it necessary to block off more spots and not replace them with others?
The size of Georgia College & State University is growing, yet the amount of available parking is shrinking rapidly. As I walk through campus I see numerous possible spots overtaken by orange tape or big orange cylinders occupying a couple of spaces at a time.
It also does not help that some of the students here have not learned to properly parallel park. Some of the people who do park on the street do not park close enough to the car in front of them. They leave a substantial gap between their car and other cars for no good reason, except that they are scared to get too close. Well, if this is the case, then don’t parallel park. If you looked at the gaps and put them all together, they would make one or two more spots, and with the situation as it is now, we could use those one or two more spaces.
Resident parking is even more difficult with the opening of the new Adams Resident Hall. Those residents must take their chances by parking on the street, or park in the old Napier parking lot, which is now much farther away. If they do decide to park beside the curb, they risk getting a ticket or a random phone call at obscene hours in the morning, when their legitimate space of a few hours earlier is suddenly no longer in a parking zone. Over the past couple of weeks, work crews have been painting the curbs yellow early in the morning and then giving tickets to cars that are parked in the newly painted zones. We’re college students, most of us can’t afford a meal unless it’s from SAGA, how are we supposed to pay a parking ticket that is difficult to avoid?
Seemingly, we are told more often than not that we can’t park somewhere around campus. We have parking lots, but with the number of students and faculty, the lots are not substantial for our needs. Even when parking is closed for a day or two, it is still an inconvenience we pay for. No one is refunding our money on the days when parking is limited. Is it just me or do we pay a large fee to be told we can’t park there?

Posted by Colonnade Archives on Feb 27 2004. Filed under Opinion. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0. You can leave a response or trackback to this entry