Parking becomes more limited as more students get their licenses and more students receive parking violations.
If a student has too many violations, they risk getting fined or having their car towed. This is an unfair punishment since many students have no other option than to park in an “illegal” parking space.
Administration sells parking permits to students throughout the year, without any regard to whether or not those spots are actually available. Given the cost of parking permits, I feel students should be guaranteed there is somewhere for them to park without violating any school rules.
Another problem is many spots are designated as visitor parking only and thus unavailable to students. Most of these visitors spots remain empty throughout the day and create wasted space which could be better utilized as student parking.
As a result, many students struggle to find parking in the main student lot and are forced to choose between parking behind JEL, which is seen as an undesirable location, or getting a parking violation.
The best solution to this issue would be for administration to either limit the number of parking permits they sell to the number of spots available or open up more spots for students to park. If either of these actions were taken, students would benefit from not having to worry about getting towed.
Bailey Hahn
