2008 Woodie Awards
A familiar refrain: campus parking situation in need of fix
Our View
Issue date: 9/21/07 Section: Opinion
Most students-and faculty, for that matter-have been in the situation: It's mid-morning, and you're running slightly late for your class that's to start in 10 minutes. You're now faced with two options that seem to come straight out of one of those choose-your-own-destiny children's books. You can head straight for the East Lake Parking lot near the baseball stadium and hope you can find a spot, speed-walk halfway across campus and sit down just as the minute hand swings over the 12.
Or, alternatively, you can pull into the West Lake Parking Lot or one of the lots near the Strain Behavioral Science Building, the University Union or the School of Physical Therapy Building, hoping oh-so desperately to find some poor soul to creep up behind as he or she walks to the car to vacate a space.
The university claims to be "Pennsylvania's premier public residential university." However, the number of students living on campus make up only about 34 percent of the total student body but are allotted 24.5 percent of the total parking spaces, the largest percentage of any single classification. The fact of the matter remains that the more than 900 staff and faculty members and the more than 5,000 commuters still need to find a parking space every day as well.
Though the gripes and whines concerning the difficulty in finding a parking space come about every year, The Rocket discovered those complaints resound significantly louder this year. This is because that while the enrollment at SRU currently stands at 8,325-the largest enrollment in the university's history-only 98 parking spaces have been added since the close of the 2006-07 academic year.
While it doesn't appear to be getting better any time in the near future, it doesn't take Rocket science to come up with a system that would at least be worth a try. Just taking a look at a few of the Pennsylvania State System of Higher Education schools, which are comparable in size to SRU, provides a few ideas that could alleviate some of the congestion problems in our parking lots without even taking "drastic" measures like building a parking garage.
Or, alternatively, you can pull into the West Lake Parking Lot or one of the lots near the Strain Behavioral Science Building, the University Union or the School of Physical Therapy Building, hoping oh-so desperately to find some poor soul to creep up behind as he or she walks to the car to vacate a space.
The university claims to be "Pennsylvania's premier public residential university." However, the number of students living on campus make up only about 34 percent of the total student body but are allotted 24.5 percent of the total parking spaces, the largest percentage of any single classification. The fact of the matter remains that the more than 900 staff and faculty members and the more than 5,000 commuters still need to find a parking space every day as well.
Though the gripes and whines concerning the difficulty in finding a parking space come about every year, The Rocket discovered those complaints resound significantly louder this year. This is because that while the enrollment at SRU currently stands at 8,325-the largest enrollment in the university's history-only 98 parking spaces have been added since the close of the 2006-07 academic year.
While it doesn't appear to be getting better any time in the near future, it doesn't take Rocket science to come up with a system that would at least be worth a try. Just taking a look at a few of the Pennsylvania State System of Higher Education schools, which are comparable in size to SRU, provides a few ideas that could alleviate some of the congestion problems in our parking lots without even taking "drastic" measures like building a parking garage.
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