South Lot Parking

Parking must be a difficult thing to control at the University of New Mexico. It is not the most pleasant thing to deal with every morning. Does anyone here have a South Lot parking permit? If you do, you know exactly what I am talking about. Leaving your house at least an hour before your 9:30 AM class just to make sure you make it there on time, is no fun. If you run even a few minutes after that, the chances that you will be standing out in the wind, under the pathetic protection at the South Lot shuttle are very high right? Students stand in quiet as they watch behind their back for the school shuttle bus to come towards their direction. The quiet students slowly start to push their way to the front to try to ensure a ride on this next coming bus because they have missed the last two. It’s unbelievable how impatient students can be this early in the morning.

Ever since the University took away Zia Lot as an additional parking lot for UNM students, the South Lot has become close to unbearable. It’s hard enough to find a parking spot that isn’t 300 feet away from the bus stop. Then once you do, you look forward to backpacks hitting you in the chest or little heels stepping on your feet.

You have to have some sort of parking permit to park anywhere on the UNM campus. If the parking attendants see your car without a parking permit, or without the correct parking permit for the lot, you will receive a parking ticket. A warning will be placed on your vehicle if this is your first time receiving a parking violation.

Staring March 8, and running through May 10, 2008, vehicles found parked in illegal areas or fire lanes etc., will be ticketed, receive a warning or locked into place with a vehicle boot, depending on the vehicle’s citation history. The punishments are pretty severe. I would be so angry and embarrassed if I came out to my car and found that it was booted because there was no place to park.

They have come up with two new ideas to possibly help with the parking problem. The first idea is having a program where UNM will lend you a bicycle for a year to help you get to and from places without having to deal with your car. This may work but still doesn’t fix the actual parking problem. If you live far from campus you are still going to have to find a parking spot then ride the bike to class. The next idea is a program called ZipCar. ZipCar is a rental car service available to students who do not have a vehicle. You are allowed to rent these by the hour or by the day. It seems like a good concept, but can only help with students who don’t have a car already and once again this would not fix the parking problem.

The University of New Mexico Parking and Transportation Services Department recently did apologize for any inconvenience parking may cause, but they should figure out other ways to help students who go to class every morning and have to deal with these problems.

I think they should have more student parking on or closer to the actual campus. I know that is hard to accomplish. I feel they should have more shuttles running to and from school in the morning so students can get to class at a reasonable time without having to be at the bus stop so early.

-Kyla