Parking predicament

You may have noticed after arriving on campus this year that the parking situation had changed quite a bit.  What once used to be  open, fair game parking on 16th Street, 17th Street and Farwell Street on campus is now heavily regulated by our very own campus police.

In order to make preparations for a new parking ramp to be located on the north side of campus in the future, the university purchased these few streets and converted them into marked spaces requiring a permit.

But that's not all.  Not only must you have a permit to park in these spaces, but you can't even park there overnight.  Let's say, for example, you are a student living in Reuter Hall but the parking lot located right behind your building is sold out.  Where last year you could simply avoid purchasing a parking permit and simply park on one of the few streets conveniently located near your building for the night, this year you must either buy a parking permit or park even further away on a street in a residential area.  

Or how about you have a meeting at night and it's raining so you want to drive to campus.  You don't have a parking permit, which was fine last year when you could simply pull up on 16th Street and call it a day, but now those spots too require a permit.

These are just two of many scenarios in which people have previously been able to reap the benefits of campus parking in cases where permits have been sold out.  

Not only does this inconvenience resident students, but it impacts the commuter students too.  Parking permits all sold out in resident and commuter lots?  Good luck finding a place to park, especially once alternate side parking rules are enforced.  

Is the regulation of parking on these streets really solving any problems or is it creating more chaos?  Who is really benefiting from these three streets now requiring permits and prohibiting overnight parking between 2 a.m. and 7 a.m.?

Students beware; if you find a parking space on the north side of campus that you think is too good to be true, it is.