Facts: There are three parking decks on campus, Coliseum Deck, Dan Allen Deck and Centennial Campus Deck. Parking decks are areas where most parking violations occur. Parking permits are required to park on campus between 7 a.m. and 5 p.m. 

Our Opinion: Parking spaces on campus are insufficient. Students living off campus should be given more priority when it comes to parking on campus. Transportation needs to make more parking spaces to ensure students don’t have to worry about getting tickets or car boots while they attend classes.    There are three large parking decks on campus; however they are insufficient considering the number of students on campus. Most students prefer to park near their classes. A surprisingly high number of students are receiving parking tickets when they park in unauthorized places. Transportation needs to realize there are parking problems on campus and they need to understand students’ parking needs before assigning passes. To resolve this issue, they should focus less on giving tickets and more on solving the lack of parking spaces.     Another problem is that construction vehicles take up precious parking spaces on campus. For example, Transportation might issue 20 parking spots at the start of semester. As the semester progresses, construction projects begin and construction vehicles occupy five of those spots. This means there are only 15 spots for the 20 permits, which were sold to park on campus prior to the school year. At least five students need to park in other places across campus, increasing their chances of getting tickets. This is unfair to students trying to park on campus; they have paid money for their parking spaces and they deserve to park on campus.    The students living off campus face the most parking problems. These students are not able to find parking when they need it and end up violating parking rules. Transportation needs to consider these factors when issuing parking permits and tickets to students. Students living on campus should be issued fewer parking permits; the rest should be reserved exclusively for students living off campus to reduce their worries of parking on campus.    When students living off campus arrive on campus, most of the spots are occupied. Although they have paid for their permits, these are the students who end up losing the most. The only choice they have is to park on campus, violating traffic rules. In the future, Transportation should consider waving off parking tickets fines for limited number of offenses for all students who have valid parking permits because campus parking is mismanaged to a large extent.     Transportation needs to realize issuing tickets to defaulters is not going to help the situation. It will only make life difficult for students. If Transportation doesn’t manage parking on campus, students will end up getting more tickets, resulting into an unsatisfied student community.    On campus, managing parking is a difficult task. When drafting laws for parking offenses, Transportation should consider the shortage of parking spaces on campus. Transportation should not be very strict when issuing parking tickets; instead, they should work on efficient ways to manage the campus parking. This will result in more parking spaces on campus and a more satisfied student community. Finally, transportation exists on campus to improve quality of student life on campus and they should concentrate on that rather than charging students for parking offenses.