Parking on campus has become an issue that is causing a severe amount of tension between students and various other people on campus.
A couple of weeks ago, a writer for the Hawkeye expressed some of his frustrations about the parking problem. His opinion was swiftly rebuked by a couple of students associated with the police station. (One such opinion can be found in this week’s Letter to the Editor.)
It is well past time the administration addresses the parking problem. The tension created between students and faculty, and now between students and other students, because of this problem is unnecessary.
If gravel lots on the outskirts of campus really are underused by 60 percent as the ULMPD student worker claims, then clearly the parking lots are not accommodating to the needs of students.
Speaking of underused lots, the faculty lots in front of Bry and Brown are always half empty because the faculty obviously does not need all of the spaces they have been allotted. While few faculty cars can be found in the lots, two common fixtures are always present: students parking in a restricted zone because they don’t have a choice and a police officer waiting to give those students a ticket.
The problem can be solved, or at least significantly improved, with a very simple change. The powers that be should immediately paint over the red lines of the lots in front of Bry and Brown and give those spots to students who desperately need to be able to park there.
While trying to figure out why the underused faculty lots have not already been re-tasked as student lots, the only logical conclusion an outside observer can gather is that the University wants to write tickets knowing students are going to park there illegally.
If this is not the case, the University needs to prove it by re-tasking those lots immediately. Not next semester. Not after fall break. It needs to be done now.
Countless stores in Monroe sell buckets of white paint. It’s time the University buys a couple of gallons of it and paints over those horrible red lines that are causing so much frustration, anger, and expense.
