Parking woes made worse by new center

As many students know, the college has built a lovely new Early Childhood Center (ECC) on the former parking lot Z and unveiled it this term. This replaced the older Early Childhood Development Center (CDC) that was located east of the Academic Center next to parking lots M and N.
Many students are aware of the frustrating parking situation, especially in the first few weeks of term. What many students, especially first-years, might not know is that the old CDC was supposed to be converted into student parking spots.

As many of you know, parking last year was bad enough — and when construction began on the new ECC building, it took away lot Z that students used for parking, which magnified the parking problem for students. The college tried to disarm the masses and reassure them by saying the CDC would be taken down and made into more parking.

Yet that is not the case. The CDC is being used for classrooms right now, known as modules.

We at The Advocate see a problem with this. Of course, having more room for potential classes can be a plus, but in this case its causing more harm than good.

With the new parking permit system, which will be enforced starting Oct. 5, students will have to pay for what now seems to be diminishing parking spaces. What’s the point of having more classrooms available when the students cannot find a parking spot to get to the classes in the first place?

While students battle these new fees and frighteningly long lines at the bookstore as well as in the student services offices, they need not battle one another behind the wheel for parking. Nor should they be forced to look at the surrounding businesses for parking and risk a ticket or worse.

There are some who might argue that in the first weeks of class, parking is always hectic. But this is simply no excuse.

When you’re threatened with being dropped from a class to make room for waitlisted students for missing a class, which makes the first week one of the most important weeks of the term.

Parking is a problem for most students, unless one was to arrive on campus at 7 a.m. For the rest of the student body, parking then becomes a cutthroat competition to get to class on time without having to walk 20 miles in the rain and snow uphill.

Okay, maybe that was a bit of an exaggeration, but the inherent point holds true: parking is an issue for most students and the loss of extra spots by the ECC without the return of aforementioned spots by the conversion of the CDC into a new lot is not making anything any better.