Between the ever-changing crosswalks on Hillsborough Street, the terrible parking situation on campus, the unpleasant revelation that every removed parking spot costs $17,000 due to an odd policy and the mess that is the student fee referendum, it’s hard to see the silver lining in the brave new post-recession world.

Yet in spite of the crap sandwich the University and economy have served up, even a pessimistic cynic like me can see a possible light at the end of the tunnel. We have been afforded the opportunity to lay down a lasting infrastructure which could easily benefit future generations of students and eventually have immediate, measurable effects.

In several conversations with parking officials, I’ve discovered that University Transportation only assigns parking spots designated for on-campus residents at a roughly one-to-one ratio. Commuter lots will never see such luxury, as parking on campus is limited by space and the fact that people tend to want to park as close to their destinations as possible. Since we cannot build sufficiently large parking facilities next to every building and could not hope to maintain enough spots on-campus to make everyone happy, we must consider alternatives.

If parking continues to be held in limited quantity, why not put the money to better use? A parking spot’s value is limited to whomever manages to secure it for his or her vehicle — we should instead invest the money in public goods. Why not put the money towards expanding Wolfline coverage to more locations over a longer period of time or improving the park-and-ride services?

I’m not suggesting a switch to a mass-transit system — we lack the population density to support any sort of effective rail-based transit program to service the various off-campus residential areas. But we do have a decent bus service in the Wolfline, and if we can appropriate enough money to make service more efficient, convenient and timely, our bus service could shine.

To do this, we’ll need to work with local politicians and businesses. Many of the businesses students support on Hillsborough Street have been ardent supporters of efforts to revitalize the area into a more energetic and useful place for students and residents alike to go out for a meal, enjoy a night out on the town or have a social life. And the Wolf Prowl night service connecting campus to downtown on weekend nights is an example of effectively using existing resources to supplement our own. After all, can you really expect University Transportation to finance and run buses in the downtown area when our campus is a couple of miles removed from said location?

And unlike Talley, where the benefits are intangible, we can measure the success of infrastructure programs. If local restaurants and bars see a sustained increase in business after efforts to make transit almost as convenient as getting into a car (and, of course, controlling for other factors), we can claim success. If more people start using park-and-ride lots after we put the resources into making sure the buses run on time, then we can use this information to expand and continue improvement on the system. And overall, we can definitely reduce the problem of parking on campus if we do more to make the Wolfline as reliable as (and much safer than) having to speed to campus to park in order to get to class on time.

Now if only we could do something about those pesky idiots who don’t look before crossing the street…