Our Voice

One of the most commonly discussed issues among students on the GCSU campus is parking. Of course, as you all know the majority of parking around our campus is owned by the City of Milledgeville and is limited to two hours between 8 a.m.- 5 p.m. during the week.

The question we raise is, is this fair?

Many students spend nearly their entire day on campus and are not within walking distance. Therefore, they must drive, park, and often move their car with the 15 minutes in between classes. This is a tough feat when you consider that trying to find a parking space around campus usually requires more than 15 minutes.

Fortunately, GCSU seems to have felt our pain. This year, they have issued commuter-parking passes to students who live off campus free of charge. In the past these passes have been as much as $40.

At The Colonnade, we commend the school for alleviating some of the pains we, and our bank accounts, have felt since the inception of the two hour parking limits.

Many students have found themselves forking the ten-dollar fine over to the City of Milledgeville nearly weekly. We plead with the city to please, please let up on these ridiculous fines.

Even with GCSU’s help in issuing free commuter passes, it is often hard to park in the commuter lots. City of Milledgeville, please hear this, we are college students who must go to class. Many of us work on campus and quite frankly, the vast majority of us cannot afford to give you ten dollars every couple of weeks.

Of course, parking is an issue on college campuses everywhere. The Colonnade, specifically, has run numerous articles throughout the years detailing the latest on the campus-parking dilemma.

It seems as though whenever a “solution” is made, another problem is merely minutes away.

The fact remains that there are simply too many students driving for the amount of parking on or around campus.

Perhaps the City of Milledgeville will hear our plea and lighten up on the two hour parking, but we, as students, can do our part too.

If you live within a decent walk, please don’t drive. Walking will help a student who lives further away find a parking spot. You will also save money on gas, get some exercise and be more environmentally friendly by walking or riding a bike.

After all, going “green” is all the rage these days. If you can’t find anything else to do, perhaps walking is your opportunity to contribute.

Please send responses to ColonnadeLetters@gcsu.edu

Posted by Colonnade Archives on Sep 19 2008. Filed under Opinion, Our Voice. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0. You can leave a response or trackback to this entry