February 12, 1999 Calvin College Chimes

New committee to address parking controversy photo by Flores Many students have been stuck driving around looking for a place to park. The new committee hopes to solve the parking dilemma. By Amanda Whittaker Staff Writer Over the years, there have been numerous parking committees that have tried to solve the problem of finding a parking space for Calvin students and faculty. Recently, Calvin once again set up a committee to look at the problem of on-campus parking. James Kraai, Vice President for Administration and Finance and Chairman of the Parking Committee, acknowledges the current problem. “Parking is a very complex problem;. It is an on-going problem that changes each semester,” he stated. Kraai says the fact that an increasing number of students are bringing cars on campus has greatly contributed to the parking problem. Kraai also said that students make the problem worse than it should be. “Right now we have just about the right number of parking spots on campus. The problem is that students move their cars during the day. A student living in the apartments may park their car in that parking lot during the night, drive over to the FAC parking lot to eat at commons, and then they move their car behind the science building, near their classes, during the day. This means that the student uses three parking spaces a day instead of one.” Responding to this, senior Mary Flether who lives off campus, said, “I would say that most of the apartment people don’t drive over at all.” Junior Kristine Jansen echoed these sentiments, saying, “That’s ridiculous. I think Calvin’s just short of parking.” Sophomore Lindsay Coats, who has an off-campus job said, “We do need more parking on campus. There’s not enough, but I don’t know what to do about it.” Other students don’t agree that the problem is too many cars. “The parking on campus during the construction process is really congested,” stated junior Walter Koning. “I saw multiple cars with tickets on them because there was absolutely no parking anywhere in real spaces.” “There was absolutely no parking anywhere in real spaces,” said Koning. Kraai agrees that there is no immediate solution to the annoyance of trying to find a parking spot on Monday, Wednesday, or Friday mornings at 10:30 when parking is the worst. “If we were to add more parking spots right now, it wouldn’t solve the issue. We would have the same problem again in a few semesters,” said Kraai. Because no new parking spaces will be added in the near future, sophomore Heidi Leach, a member of the Environmental Stewardship Coalition, suggested carpooling as a way to deal with the nuisance. “Next week [the week of February 14], a sign-up sheet will be put up in Johnny’s for commuters to sign up to carpool together,” she stated. Not only will students save money on gas, but carpooling will also help the environment by reducing air pollution. Kraai said that currently the committee is looking at the overall situation. “The three main things that we are taking into consideration are safety, the environment, and convenience,” he stated. Originally, a popular idea was to create a new parking lot near Boer- Bennik, but that would be very costly. Kraai also said that there are many environmental issues in that area. Leach agrees. “I don’t want them to have to cut down more trees over by Boer-Bennik just so that we can have more parking spaces,” she stated. “I think there are other options that we can find.” photo by Flores Many students have expressed their complaints concerning parking tickets when there is such limited parking. With the area by Boer-Bennik ruled out as a possible place for new parking spaces, two other areas are currently being considered. “The committee is looking to add 300 parking spots between the track and the present student parking lot behind Kalsbeek- Huizenga,” said Kraai. “Another aspect to consider is that the parking lot by the athletic field (across East Beltline) is the future home of a Communications Arts and Sciences building. Because we will lose all those parking spots, we are also looking to add approximately 140 parking spots -- just to the south western corner of campus, to the left of the main entrance,” he said. Until a solution is found, many students believe that the number of tickets should be reduced. “We need to open more spaces somewhere or limit the tickets for cars that are not parked in actual spaces,” stated Koning. Another option the committee is creating is to implement a sticker system. Students would have certain stickers on their cars representing their major. Kraai gave an example: “For instance, a music major could have a special sticker to park in the FAC parking lot because most of his/her classes would be in that building.” In the future, the north parking lot across from East Beltline may be turned into a storage facility for students who don’t use their cars frequently. “If we have a storage facility for the cars that aren’t used regularly, that will free up space for commuters,” added Kraai. Although the problem may eventually be worked out, students are still irritated by parking. “I can’t stand the parking here,” said sophmore Lindsay Boumgarden. “They need to get more [parking spaces].” When asked when Calvin students can look forward to the new parking spots Kraai replied, “Because this problem is so complex, we can’t make one decision and solve the problem forever. It needs long range planning.”