SCENARIO: you’re at your apartment and are unable to print a document. You need to place this paper in your TA’s box in New Cabell in the next 30 minutes, so you decide to drive over to and park behind Alderman, where you’ll print out the document. However, it’s 4:30 p.m. and illegal to park behind Alderman until after 5 p.m.. You don’t sweat this minute detail, figuring it’s unlikely you will be ticketed while you’re inside Alderman for 15 minutes. Yet you exit Alderman, paper in hand, ready to drive to New Cabell and illegally park again, only to discover an envelope stuck under your windshield wipers. The envelope holds a $45 fine, all because you needed to print a paper and turn it in by five. This example is not an uncommon one and represents an issue every student who owns a car is familiar with at the University: the shortage of parking, particularly where there is no risk of a ticket.
With the construction going on around Grounds it is understandable why there has been a parking crunch. The lot that once was across JPA from New Cabell provided many parking spaces for faculty and staff, and its demise led to the halving of the Bice Apartments’ parking lot into separate sections for students and staff. Construction around the Curry School has eliminated parking as well. However, in both instances, if a student were to park in the old JPA lot or the Curry lot, he or she could end up with a ticket. Until 5 p.m., there’s just not much in the way of student parking options. Though no one wants students to drive to class and park anywhere, creating an untenable parking and traffic situation, it seems reasonable that there should be an option aside from paying to park in the Central Grounds Parking Garage when a student needs to make a quick trip into a library or pick up something at Newcomb.
The Corner provides a smart model. It has 10-minute parking along University Avenue so that people can quickly pick up a bagel at Bodo’s or a book at the Student Bookstore. It would not be a huge stretch for the University to do something akin to this. One suggestion would be changing a few of the spaces lining McCormick Road near the libraries or behind Alderman to 15 minute parking spaces, a change that would benefit not just students but anyone who needed to take care of something quickly on Central Grounds. Admittedly, it is difficult to find new parking options when so many spaces do require reservations for faculty and staff. Still, for students who find themselves with the risky choice of parking illegally, the absence of short-term parking remains an issue. It would benefit students if the situation were given attention, by Student Council or University Parking and Transportation, especially since it is a problem that needs only a few spaces to solve.
Aside from needing better short-term parking options, it would help students if the University made the current parking lots more accessible. There is no doubting the need for “always reserved” spaces or lots, which University Parking and Transportation says it maintains “in order to meet academic and program needs;” however, the Curry School lot is at most half-full by 5 p.m. on a weekday, yet always requires a permit. If it’s evident that an always-reserved lot is not being used very much beyond the typical work day, why not make it nine to five, Monday through Friday? In the case of the Curry lot, this would help students who need to go to Newcomb for club meetings and other activities in the evening. Perhaps the University is cynically keeping that lot off-limits in order to force students to pay for the parking deck, though it seems like getting 70 cents every time students park there for an hour cannot be incredibly lucrative. Less understandable is the faculty half of the Bice lot that is also reserved 24/7. Recently, I received a ticket for parking there Saturday and Sunday, not noticing the laminated paper sign hung on a light pole saying “K2 - Reserved at All Times.” I assumed it was off-limits on weekdays between nine and five, as it had previously been. When I fetched my car it was the only vehicle in the staff part of the lot, demonstrating its constantly reserved status may be unnecessary. If anything, the student part of the lot should be reserved at all times for the sake of the people who live at Bice and actually need their spaces.
Overall, an increase in short-term parking near Central Grounds would help students with academic emergencies or quick errands involving CIOs and other organizations. It would also help tuition payers if parking were made available in lots that are currently off-limits all the time. The University should make some relatively subtle parking modifications that will greatly aid students in their academic and organizational tasks.
Geoff Skelley is a Cavalier Daily Viewpoint Writer.
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