It's the first day of the new semester with ten minutes to class, and there's not a parking spot in sight. Driving from lot to lot and watching the minutes tick away, I find myself cussing UB out for its limited accessibility.
I live in Niagara Falls, so I have about a half hour drive to UB. Knowing that it will take me at least 15 minutes to find a place to park, I start out early.
Sipping coffee on the way, I eventually hit the Sweet Home Road construction, which offers bowel-shaking potholes and far-from-courteous construction workers. All the while, I know that the whole UB parking fiasco waits patiently ahead.
The question that is evident here is the same question that has always existed: why doesn't UB make greater efforts to create more parking spaces?
Let's look at what UB can do to help make parking a bit more tangible for commuters.
We'll start with students who are able to use UB campus transportation. If students live on campus, there really is no need for them to drive their vehicles to class and snatch up precious parking spaces. I know that everyone wants to show off their sweet rides to impress their peers, but how about we just save the car show for Shred and Reagan's Cruise Night at the Summit Mall.
Really though, it's not that far to walk or to just catch the bus, despite how crowded the bus can get. Bus-goers are also relieved from the stress of driving in high traffic. It's a small, short-lived sacrifice to make which will help open up the possibility of stress-free parking.
This problem is nothing new to the veterans of UB's infamous parking headache, who are well aware that the only way to legally snag a parking spot is to arrive at school between seven and eight in the morning, no matter what time your first class is.
Day in and day out, it's an all-out war, with other angry students threatening to come out from a corner and sideswipe you. As students, we pay the school to take classes we ultimately end up missing due to lack of parking. In an attempt to make it to class on time we make a vain attempt to invent our own spot, resulting in the dreaded slip of paper pinned between our wiper blades, wherein again the university cashes in.
With the amount of money the students pay to attend class here, it seems only logical that it should include a guaranteed spot on campus so that one is able to concentrate on learning and not spending their day in the campus lots. Classes are stressful enough, why should we have to deal with the stress of finding somewhere to park on top of that?
A university with more commuting students than available parking spaces is asinine as the Titanic, which had more passengers than available lifeboats. Makes you toss your arms up, shrug, and wish you had brought your paddle.
Photo: Courtesy of Laron Fomby
