Year after year, The Roar has posted an article on this subject. It isn’t a secret at this point. Every student on campus has been affected by this in some manner. We’ve seen its effects on Instagram pages, YikYak posts, and word-of-mouth conversations. Yes, this sounds like a broken record. Yes, this is repetitive. Yes, you are probably over this conversation by now, but to be fair, so are we. Yes, this is another article about parking.
Let’s be honest. 12 o’clock on a weekday at the Commons gets more congested than my sinuses during allergy season. Students pass Loudermilk Field, filled; The Commons, filled; even Wallace Hall is filled. The remaining students have to consider parking all the way in Lot J or pray to whatever deities they believe in that some student will be gracious enough to be leaving at just the right time for you to pull in. Students don’t want to park so far away that they have to walk to the cafeteria, of all things. So, where does this issue stem from?
Is it the students’ unwillingness to consider carpooling or eating at a different time? It’s quite possible, but why should that ever be an expectation of us? We can’t really change what times we have free from classes for lunch. Is it an issue of being at the wrong place at the wrong time? Of course not. It’s lunch. Students need to eat. Is it an issue of too many students and not enough space? That is a very logical conclusion, and the threat of getting ticketed for parking in a red lot would certainly discourage anyone tame enough to want to avoid such a consequence for eating lunch.
Year after year, parking has become more and more of a prevalent issue. The increase in student enrollment certainly hasn’t aided the issue, nor has our pretentious nature that other students should “just let me park.” Alternative methods and locations of parking worthy of head-turning are not a feasible, legal, nor noble option either. Could we afford some more parking space? Of course! Everybody would! That doesn’t make it achievable within the next few months to bring about enough of an immediate drastic change. It isn’t practical to constantly expand spaces and demolish residence halls along the way. Here are some options I would find practical.
Maybe Piedmont could revive the shuttle service, and post a consistent, reliable schedule for students to follow. Or maybe we can just learn to walk everywhere and prioritize our time better for travel. Regardless, parking has been and is still a problem, and coming to no solution, and ignoring the fact there is an evident problem solves nothing. It just builds the tension before everything snaps. There needs to be some kind of relief from this tension, or at least a genuine attempt to.
