Safety in Parking

College is one of the most exciting times of your life, and it can be one of the busiest. Many of us juggle jobs, school, relationships, and other extracurricular activities. At times it feels we are almost forced to be in a rush. Sometimes we forget about the safety of others in our rush. Parking is something that can cause a lot of stress in our life. We are so focused on getting to where we want to go, that parking is the last thing that we want to deal with. Students have to get to classes on time, and in all the rush become a liability in the parking lot. BYU has a limited number of student parking close to the main areas of campus. I had a friend who was hit by a driver while walking to class in a parking lot. The girl wasn’t paying attention and ran into him. Luckily he wasn’t hurt, but it is better to prevent accidents from happening. We need to have more parking available so that students are safer when trying to park.

I feel that if we eliminate faculty parking from student lots it will provide more accessible parking. By freeing up these spots it will allow for students to have more areas to park. Students won’t be in as big of a hurry trying to find a space to park, and that will result in safer driving. Many of the faculty do travel longer distances to get to school and have already put their time into school. I feel that we should keep the larger faculty lots open that are close to campus. Faculty members can also park in any lot they want, so if by chance there isn’t a space in any of the “A” lots, they could then go use a student or grad student parking lot. If we could provide a faster way for students to get to class, then I believe that would help ease the stress and provide safer parking.

Many schools have a shuttle bus that helps transport students to class on time. BYU could purchase a recycled school bus fairly cheap. This will also provide more student employment because you will have to hire bus drivers. You could have two busses running students every five minutes to select locations on campus during rush hours. I believe if we had a student shuttle at the parking lots farther away, students would take advantage of the shuttles. Shuttle stops would be located by the Tanner building, testing center, and Wilkinson center so that the main areas of campus can be accessed.

The Tanner building provides access to the front third of campus. The JKB, JFSB, and math building are all right in that area. The testing center gives access to the back third of campus like the Brimhall building, JSB, Maesar building, and Widstoe building. The Wilkinson center is the central location to everything else on campus. By providing quick and easy access to these main areas students don’t need to be worried about time and walking distance as much. When weather is bad it saves them from having to walk in it. Many of the students live very close to campus and could also ride the UTA bus or even walk when the weather is nice.

The majority of students live within a two mile radius of campus. If BYU charged for a parking sticker I think it would help cut down on the number of student drivers that live so close to campus. Charging for parking would help encourage students to choose an alternate method of transportation; whether it is walking, biking, or riding the bus. Many other universities require students to buy parking permits. Students could pay more to park in lots closer to campus if parking is that important to them. By charging students for parking that would free up a number of spots, and provide a safer environment in parking lots.

Students on campus are concerned with their safety because of parking. The constant rush of the day catches up with many of us and we disregard concern for other people. By providing solutions to the problem, we are able to slow down a little and take the few extra minutes to watch out for people when we park. In the long run students can really benefit from a few simple solutions to solve the problems we have with parking right now.