Usually when one thinks of parking troubles, many would imagine places like Chicago or Milwaukee. But the issue transcends city areas. It continues to happen on college campuses.
At Illinois Wesleyan, many students are forced to park far away from their dorm due to lack of space. As we are informed every time we have freezing temperatures, IWU is a walkable campus. I enjoy strolls across campus, but having to trek ten minutes from my parking space to my dorm in the middle of December when there is a lot right next to my dorm seems excessive. Believe me, I timed it.
In addition to this, our parking lots are so limited that they fill up before you can even say “Wesleyan.” This forces students to park on the side of the street. Most of the curbs around campus are so full of cars; students are so desperate to find a space that they will park their cars with the hoods hanging over into a non-parking zone. Even though this is a “residential campus,” a lot of students have cars, and they need to park somewhere. I get why anyone would risk a parking ticket when there is quite literally nowhere to park, and they need to get to class on time.
Recently I saw a student receiving a ticket for the front of the vehicle being a mere foot past the curb and jutting into the entryway of a lot. Must we be forced to illegally park if we cannot find a closer and more decent spot? And if we do find a spot, it is often in a lot that cannot be used overnight or belongs to staff.
And for students that do park in these staff lots over the weekends, they have to make a quick exit bright and early Monday morning. Campus safety does their first parking sweep of the day right when the lots open. Don’t sleep in, or you’ll pay for it.
Staff parking takes up a large portion of available spaces, and I won’t deny that they also deserve parking spots. Nevertheless, if IWU is banning students from parking in staff lots, perhaps they should also keep the staff from parking in student areas.
My brother at another college pays a few hundred dollars every semester for parking, which is egregious. Defenders of IWU’s overcrowded parking lots may argue that we should be grateful because the parking is free with a registered vehicle. And this is true! But, IWU works on a ticket-by-ticket basis, where we pay our parking fees through each yellow ticket left on unsuspecting windshields and long, cold walks between our dorms and cars.
Our lack of payment does not mean we don’t deserve a right to organized and well-managed parking lots.