SGA votes to examine the parking problems

Author: Patrick Jobson

The Student Government Association (SGA) Senate decided in its final meeting on May 4 to support a proposal to reallocate available parking spots and also alleviate parking confusion on campus.

The SGA had many things on its table on what was going to be a long and heated meeting. After discussing public transportation with a representative of Addison County Transit Resources (ACTR) and accepting the Finance Committee's budget proposal, the SGA discussed the current issue of parking spaces on campus.

Currently, there are 555 junior and senior parking permits available, and only 441 open parking spaces. In addition to parking confusion, this created over $34,000 in parking ticket revenue in the 2006-2007 academic year. This revenue may be attributed to the inefficient allocation of parking spots.

According to Lisa Boudah, director of Public Safety, the number of parking permits does not accurately represent the quantity of cars actually on campus. Public Safety may "not follow each person well enough," said Boudah. "Some students come in the fall, leave in the winter and are still counted even if they are not here." Other miscalculations may be due to the fact that many students change their vehicles during the academic year and get a permit for both of them.

But SGA Senior Senator Ashwin Gargeya '08 said that "literally 110 juniors and seniors are playing musical chairs with the available parking spots." According to Gargeya and other members of the SGA, finding a spot to park is extremely challenging and time-consuming and the problem can be alleviated if parking spaces are better distributed.

According to the proposal presented to the Senate, the best solution is to reallocate the available parking spots so that the number of parking permits is closer to the number of available parking spaces. For example, there are 282 spots reserved for first-year students reserved at Kenyon Lot, while only 83 first-year parking permits have been handed out.

The SGA agreed to approve the proposal calling for Public Safety to efficiently redistribute parking spaces. This way, both first-years and sophomores will park in Kenyon Lot, opening more parking spaces for juniors and seniors at the Kevin P. Mahaney '84 Center for the Arts. In addition, during sporting events, there will be a weekend grace period in Kenyon in order to allow students the chance to move their vehicle by Monday without receiving parking tickets.

Another important proposal to the SGA Senate was to alleviate parking confusion.

According to the SGA there are many students that do not understand when and where can they park their vehicle. The bill proposed by the SGA claimed that Public Safety is not using its resources as efficiently as it could, since more officers are taking on the role of parking attendants.

In order to resolve this problem, the SGA suggested the creation of a color system in which parking permits and parking spaces are designated a particular color.

"Color coding is the first easy step," said Boudah. The coding system will allow students to easily distinguish in which spaces they are allowed to park by simply matching the color of their parking permit to the color of the parking spot.

In addition, Public Safety would create and attach signs to the current parking spaces to clearly indicate the hours a student may park in that certain space.

"Public Safety has done a lot," said Gargeya. "There has been a cut from around $70,000 [in parking-ticket revenue] to around $34,000." According to Boudah, Public Safety is "trying to get better" in counting the amount of permits issued and distributing parking spaces.

Further discussions and the implementations of these proposals are planned to begin this summer.