CU’s profiting from providing little parking space for students
Driving around campus looking for a spot (not even an ideal one either) can sometimes feel like a never-ending race track; the Champs-Elysées of Boulder.
Like most college campuses, CU doesn’t favor its students parking on campus. However, this creates an extremely frustrating parking problem for visiting family members, friends, students and so on.
I have friends who still live in the dorms as resident assistants or simply because they enjoy the benefits of dorm life. When I visit or stay overnight, it’s impossible to tell where and when I can park without getting a $20 parking ticket. College students can’t afford to pay such a high price for just a parking ticket–you can fill up a tank of gas or buy three meals with that sort of money.
I have fallen prey to a few parking tickets. It’s infuriating to come back to my car to see a friendly $20 greeting just because I was two minutes late or because I didn’t have any change for the meter.
A friend told me how once she was dropping off a friend of hers for a youth group retreat and stepped out of her car to say goodbye. She had parked at a meter, but was only standing a few cars away when the parking officer gave her a parking ticket. The parking officer even saw her standing there. My friend tried to negotiate her ticket at the police office, but she discovered that if she did not win her case, she would have to pony up another $20 on top of her ticket.
Naturally, parking meters should have a time constraint to keep parking available, along with a fine to keep people in line. However, the limited amount of parking at CU is annoying.
Parking at CU is like running a maze, and it’s a waste of time trying to find the shortcuts for the right place to park.
Last year I had an expensive parking permit for Williams Village. My friend had one too, but she was unfortunate enough to have someone break into her car. That same week, four other Jeeps were broken into. She and I agreed that for as much as parking permits cost, there should be some video cameras to watch for theft.
CU should add more parking spaces and make parking cheaper. With all of the tuition CU gets, as well as all the money from parking permits and tickets, I don’t see CU plummeting into financial debt by expanding its parking options.
Contact Campus Press Staff Writer Emily Burrows-Poretsky at emily.burrows-poretsky@thecampuspress.com
