Collegiate Times

If you haven?t heard, the powers that be have decided to erect a building on the Durham Hall faculty/staff parking lot. To compensate for the loss of these valuable parking spaces, Parking Services has sent out a stern notice to the campus that the entire first row of commuter parking spaces behind Durham Hall will be given to the faculty/staff. That?s 110 spaces!

What?s more, I regularly walk by the faculty/staff Perry Street lot and I see that it is only half full most of the time. In short, professors are being given spaces when they don?t utilize the ones they already have. As a commuter student, I am alarmed.

I wonder if the people that made this decision have ever walked from Prices Fork to class in McBryde or Patton Halls when there is a sub-zero wind chill outside. I also ask myself if the folks in charge have ever been frustrated enough by the long wait for a parking space to park in a faculty/staff lot and then had to pay a $30 fine for it. It?s possible, but no, probably not. I think the people that came up with this are fairly out of touch with the regular student.

I have a few ideas about this curious dilemma. First off, instead of building some random campus building that I?ll probably never go into, why don?t they build a nice parking garage. Many other campuses have done this with reasonable success. It would be nice if Virginia Tech thought about its students more than its prestige for a second.

Secondly, what is the deal with the $30 parking ticket? When my brother went to college, a parking citation was five or 10 dollars. If they have to take more of the commuter students? spaces away, they should at least lighten up about the fines. Sucking money from some of the wealthy attendees of our football games and summer conferences is one thing, but harassing poor college students is blatantly wrong.

Also, if I get fed up waiting for a parking space, it would be nice to know that Parking Services would only steal a little of my money after having stolen many of my parking spaces.

I know, I know. I could always take the bus. Unfortunately, it doesn?t run all the way out to my house. But that?s ok, I still pay a bus fee so that if a bus were to just show up to my house, I could theoretically ride it somewhere.

All I?m saying is that the parking situation is getting progressively worse for everyone. The university?s administration and Parking Services are chiseling away at the parking that we commuter students are entitled to after having paid so much to be here.

If nothing is done in the very forseeable future, our closest parking area will be at University Mall.