If there is one serious issue on this campus that gets no respect, it’s parking. It is an issue that confronts the students, faculty and staff on a daily basis and is one that has, for the most part, fallen by the wayside as University planners have set their sights on more glamorous and high-profile projects.
Let’s face it — the University has a serious problem with parking. The University sells two to three times as many parking permits as available spots, meaning students spend $94 per term (a 3 percent increase from last year) not for a parking space, but rather for a license to hunt for one.
DPS Parking and Transportation Manager Rand Stamm told the Emerald in a Sept. 20 article that price increases are designed to “discourage students from driving.”
Meanwhile, the University is trying to bully students into either living in their cramped dorms or moving just off-campus to areas that the city government now seems to want to strip of student tenants.
Well, it is working. The thought of having to drive to campus makes it hard to get up in the morning.
Many in the University community, especially those with off-campus jobs, have no choice but to drive. That can mean scheduling classes in two hour blocks to accommodate parking or desperately searching for the few free parking spots in the neighborhoods surrounding the campus.
We don’t condone the notion that everyone should have their own personal parking space on campus either, but other options seem to be in danger of withering on the vine. The bus is generally a good alternative and we applaud the University for making good use of mass transit, but depending on where you live and where you need to go during the day the bus often won’t take you there in a timely manner, if at all.
Biking to school, always a popular alternative form of transportation, now promises to become more of a hassle now that DPS is increasing enforcement of bike laws. Besides, the prospect of biking down any of the University’s main streets (which are essentially the only approved bike routes) five minutes before class means weaving in and out of crowds of clueless pedestrians.
While we don’t want to encourage students to drive alone to campus before looking at more environmentally friendly options, there are some cold hard facts to face: the University is growing. In 1997, the total fall enrollment head count was 17,207; today that figure is at 20,033.
There are no easy solutions, but more parking or smarter parking should definitely be part of the conversation. The University loves to make claims about how well it plans for the future, but even with all the brain power and innovation in this institution, we still cling to the simplest choices.
Parking lots around campus, such as the lot behind the Knight Law Library, just isolate the community from the University, setting us off from Eugene like a moat around a castle. University planners might consider skipping the vast vacant lots of blacktop currently employed as parking lots — when new buildings are constructed they should come with underground parking facilities.
Whatever the decision, the University needs to take a long hard look at the policies in place, because right now we are on a collision course with disaster.