A couple of streets are essential to any student trying to get his or her bearings. Our roads offer cardinal directions, parking spots, and driving area. Dan Allen, Cates, and Hillsborough are our main three roads, and one of them might be undergoing some major changes. The University administration, Kelly Hook, and Duda/Paine Architects have been talking about a potential expansion to the pedestrian routes of Cates Avenue. In the architects’ proposal, the sidewalks would be expanded and the parking spots would be decreased. Some other changes were proposed to the buildings along Cates Avenue but the obviously controversial part of the proposal was a decrease in the parking spots from 275 to 86 spots. Even more than the impact of decreased spots, those particular spots are some of the most coveted on all of campus adding more weight to the parking cuts. After all, they’re all right next to the central campus residence halls. Some of the spots that are near Case Dining Hall are C parking spots, but I doubt that faculty spots are seriously under consideration for removal. We have two issues with this proposal. We don’t even feel that Cates Avenue has a pedestrian problem. Student Body President Kelly Hook should be commended for voicing this opinion when she said this isn’t the time to make Cates Avenue more pedestrian friendly. And secondly, we think everyone who has lived on campus understands the importance of keeping those particular parking spots untouched. There are already sidewalks along almost all of Cates, and it’s really easy to walk down. Walking along and across Cates isn’t a big issue. There are seven crosswalks on Cates. Two of these have lights with full sound capabilities for the blind. In our opinion, crossing Cates Avenue is reasonably safe for the average pedestrian. Speed bumps also prevent the cars going across Cates from being too fast. The FYC Commons and Talley have both speed bump locations. The busiest point on Cates is at Talley where the buses pick up students, but the busses have a functioning port that gets them off of the street. The alleyway right down the side of Alexander Hall and Price Hall averts the potential hubbub of turning the busses around on Cates. If the busses really have trouble, they can go completely down the alley where the girth is able to hold a wide turn. That alleviates any major congestion around Carmichael Gym. If the administration is worried about the quality of Cates, they should make sure that no one touches those parking spots. For students living in the central campus residence halls and farther into east campus those parking spots are key for convenient parking. If students didn’t have those parking spots, they would have to park all the way in the expensive coliseum parking deck, or Dan Allen Deck. With an increasing student body and the recent decrease of RW parking in the Bragaw lot, an additional decrease in prime parking will result in bitter emotions. When the University is considering new projects to spend our money, we would prefer to see parking increased. Although we acknowledge that our campus is very pedestrian based, the convenient use of our cars is also essential. We don’t want to park far away from our dorms just for some wider sidewalks.