My news sources are filled with parking problems at our nation’s universities. Seems that when we go back to school, everyone starts to complain about the parking. In most cases, its due to what they consider a "lack" of convenient parking.
The problem is caused be the fact that baby boomer’s grand kids are entering college and need more space, so they build classrooms on surface parking lots. They attempt to replace the parking with structures, but of course that takes time and money and usually don’t keep pace with demand. And the complaints start.
Naturally the parking is no longer close in, since the close in space is taken for classrooms so the new space is on the edge of campus and all hell breaks loose when students find they have to leave home earlier to get to school in time to park and walk to class. Insult is added to injury when they are in Arizona or Sacramento and find they have to walk in 100 plus degree heat.
The solution — raise the cost of parking on campus to meet the true cost of building and maintaining the parking facilities. This will force those students who can’t afford the higher prices to take public transportation. The public transportation will have plenty of riders and put on extra buses to handle the problem. Or that’s what would happen if the free market were allowed to operate.
Of course, planners will get in the way and there you are. Students will complain that its a hardship to take a bus, or they can’t get to work after school, or the bus stop is too far from the music department. The administration will roll over, lower parking prices, the uni will be flooded with cars, and there you go.
Gee, if I remember correctly, I drove a Honda 50 when I was in college, at least until my third year, when I had enough seniority to get a parking pass. Most of the other underclassmen either rode cycles or motorbikes. Perfect — cheaper, quick, park anywhere… Oh yes, and when it snowed, I walked 40 miles through 10 foot drifts just to turn in my Poly Sci paper.
JHV
