The problems of parking on campus
Suppose you come to your class a half an hour before class start and you search a full parking lot. I think the lot of parking causes problems for students. This situation happens most of the weekdays at the WMU main campus. What would you do? Clearly this creates a problem for students. It is true that not all students have cars but majority do. There are presently 24,294 enrolled students in all of the WMU campuses. On the other hand there are only 14,215 parking spaces available on campus. So, the parking is not enough for 24,294 students. We still are short 10,034 spaces for students parking. I may say that the problems of parking on campus will be that students will be late for their classes, and the price of a parking sticker is too expensive. These are some reasons that affect the students and bother them about the parking at WMU campus.
First of all, It takes a long time to drive to search a parking spot and this makes students late to their class. For instance, I asked my classmate Faisal" Why were you always late to class?" He said to me "because the parking is far away from my class." The problem is that the parking lot that we are allowed to park at is so far from our classes. We need some times 15 minutes to walk to get to class. I know the purpose of walking is exercise but if this is the purpose it will waste my time and we will late on our classes. I think the limited amount of parking is a real problem and a waste of time for students to find parking.
I conducted a random survey on Thursday Nov,22,2013. My survey conducted of the following two question 1-How often do you face problem finding a parking space?2- Do you think the sticker is too high ?)) of the 50 students. I served 40 have cars. The 90% of the forty said "they have difficulty finding parking near their classes." Also,45 students said "the price of sticker is too high."
The second problem of parking on campus is a high price for the parking sticker. When I asked the students about the sticker. Their answers almost all students wants to be free or at least half the current price. According to Captain Dedow who work at police department at WMU. She told me " Annual permits are $300. Annual permits are valid from September 1 through August 31 for each year. Commuter students (students who reside off campus) have the option to purchase a semester permit for $180" . Also, Students may not park at a meter. Most of the meters on campus are for the exclusive use of visitors, not students. On the other hand in my country Saudi Arabia, the parking on campus is free. I feel that it should be free for students to park anywhere on the campus. The fee for the parking sticker should be included with financial grant. While the parking fee used to take care parking lot such as, light ,snow removal and security. The cost for all these things should paid from a student's tuition. To those who cannot afford it they should get it for free. Because, The United State Of America is the leader of the world and it is rich country. So, they can the parking free.
Finally, To solve this issue is that there should be a metro in the city that runs 24 hours. If there is, you will see more students take the metro instead of their car. Many students go to the library to do their research or study on campus during the weekend . However, The metro does not run on Sunday. The hours of operation are 6am-10pm Monday-Saturday. It would be more better if they ran 24 hours, so that students could stay longer and study longer at the campus. They could also have transportation home when they finish their classes or projects. It would be more flexible for everyone taking classes. There would be less hassle in parking if students took the metro, and more places to walk to get to class easier. There should be more bus stops on campus to make it easy to catch the bus 24 hours a day. They should have special buses run during events on the campus. The only way the problem with parking will be solved is this. Parking should be close to the buildings holding classes and more accessible. The metro should extend their hours and have more stops close to campus. The last point is that the parking sticker should be free or given in the form of financial grant.