The campus community is outraged over a lack of parking available on campus – specifically students who decide they can’t walk over five minutes to get to their classes. 

Much of the student body’s anger stems from the very existence of staff parking lots. Many students are claiming that there are too many staff parking lots and that the staff should just walk to work because it is “unfair that they have to walk from RTK to Holmes Hall.” One student who drives from the Senior Apartments to the library everyday claims that, “if there wasn’t so much wasted space on staff parking, I wouldn’t have to drive around campus five times before finding a spot.” 

Instead of investing in the outdated form of transportation known as the “bicycle,” students would rather contribute to the steady decline of the environment as we know it by turning on their cars an average of 10 times a day and still managing to complain that the walk from the McDonnell parking lot to the quad is too far. 

“I love the environment and everything I do is to protect Mother Nature, but forcing me to walk to class and the constant threat of parking tickets is a serious issue here,” said student Johnny Appleseed ’24. “One kid driving to class isn’t gonna change anything.” In contradiction to his point, statistics show that approximately 95 percent of students with cars on campus drive to class every day. The remaining five percent get rides from the students with cars, and have thus been lobbying fiercely for an HOV lane on Fraternity Drive. 

Students, many of which argue that the campus needs more greenery, are also advocating to create more parking lots on campus. While it may not seem visible to the naked eye, there are many places on campus where new parking lots could be built and would create a safe walking distance from students’ cars to their classes. One great spot is the Science Quad, as most students sit on the main quad anyways. 

Other students argue that the campus is too steep and forces them to show up to class sweaty if they walk. Interestingly, most of the students that have a problem with walking to class are the same ones that walk to and from the frats three nights a week. “Forcing students to go outside and breathe in fresh air everyday is a violation of my freedom. If in order to drive to my classes I have to rack up 15 parking tickets by the end of the semester so be it,” said student Parker Driverson ’23.