Opinion

Parking calls for a Sacrifice

Max Meinung
Guest Columnist

As a loyal reader of The Daily Cougar (those crossword puzzles sure come in handy during Poli. Sci.), I'm aware that there've already been a few columns this semester about the parking situation, but I thought I'd propose my own solution.

By now, we've probably all heard the Chancident's quip that we can have parking that's either abundant and cheap, convenient and abundant, or cheap and convenient, but not abundant, cheap and convenient. With all due respect to Mr. Dr. Smith, I think he may have overlooked something.

Every day, hundreds of students participate in the hunt for parking. We've all got priorities: a space closer to the first class, or the last. Every day, those priorities get narrowed down to one: a space closer than Cleveland.

In an ideal world, parking would be scattered throughout the University, with more spaces near the buildings that have more classrooms. Then we'd all be able to park relatively close to whatever building we needed to be in.

However, as you may already have noticed (except for the Liebniz fans among you), this is not an ideal world. It's UH.

One thing is missing to solve the problem of parking spaces: space. It's at something of a premium on campus. We've already marginalized trees and grass to an aesthetically unpleasant degree, so we'll have to find somewhere else to take it.

Face it, friends: it's time for some sacrifices to be made. We may not want to, but we have, it seems, little choice. Something must go.

Now, the best thing with sacrifices is to get rid of the least valuable thing possible, so that the loss, while it may be felt, will not be nearly as bad as it might be. Let's run through our options.

First, we could get rid of some classroom buildings. There's a lot of those around campus, so it seems like an idea that might work, but since we're about to tear up one of the parking lots to build a new building over by Science and Research 1, it's probably not too useful a solution.

Since we can't tear down a classroom building, what about E. Cullen? It doesn't seem like much of anything important actually happens there, and I know most of us students would be quite glad to see the thing go. Unfortunately, that would lead to unpleasant things like standing in line for three hours in August or January, when it's likely to be 90 degrees or higher, if not around 40.

So, scratch E. Cullen; scratch the classroom buildings. What does that leave?

Well, if you've ever had to walk from lot 12A, you can probably guess what I'm going to say. There's a big, useless structure between you and wherever you need to go.

Yes, I'm talking about Roberston Stadium. Not only would tearing it down give us a huge number of new parking spaces, it would also shorten the walk from the far southwest corner of campus.

It's time for this University to get its priorities in order. It's time for football to make way for parking. If James Robertson really needs something named after him, he can have the new parking lot.

Meinung, a junior education major, can be reached via dccampus@mail.uh.edu.