No parking
One of the perennial issues sure to be addressed by student government candidates in this week’s elections is the distinct lack of parking on campus. A flyer touting one of the candidates’ platforms contained this simple statement: “More Parking.”
Between Main Street, Cary Street, Broad Street and Bowe Street we have four parking garages, and countless parking lots. When you come right down to it, we probably have more parking space than classroom space. So why does it always seem so hard to find a space?
Part of the problem is that out of VCU’s 27,000 students, a large majority – 70 percent – commute to campus. If everyone insisted on driving to class, that means we’d need nearly 20,000 spaces to satisfy demand. To put that figure into perspective, the recently completed Cary Street deck has room for fewer than 750.
Clearly some creative solutions are needed. One idea overheard would provide a shuttle to the Diamond for students to use spaces there (all 1,600 of them) when the stadium is not in use. A cheaper idea may be to let students with compatible schedules split the cost of a single space.
In the end, the best way to reduce demand for parking is not driving at all. There are plenty of bike racks on campus for bicycles, and several bus routes run along Broad Street to all parts of Richmond – a semester pass from GRTC costs $50, compared with about $150 for most parking spaces.
More information:
http://www.bsv.vcu.edu/vcupark
Consent of the governed
In the Mar. 3 issue of the Commonwealth Times, Elizabeth Roach, the latest member of our student Supreme Court (or whatever it’s called), was quoted as saying that she’s “more than willing to play catch-up” in making up for her lack of experience in student government. President Zmarak Khan, supporting Roach’s appointment, expressed a hope that “Elizabeth and other justices will help mature into these new positions.”
No offense to Ms. Roach, but why are we creating a decision-making body with lifetime appointments when these people may or may not be qualified to make these decisions? This suggests a larger problem with the new constitution that was approved by the student body in last year’s elections – just how much sense does it make to base our student government’s constitution after that of the United States?
Local governments throughout the country have distinctly varying forms of government to conform to the needs of the community. If our campus needs a judicial branch, then let’s have it. But an argument last semester by Vice-President Eddie O’Leary – that we should be “proud to have our student government modeled after such exceptional and proven institutions” – suggests that we may be putting idealism over the needs of the student body.
Get out and vote!
Student government elections begin tomorrow at 8:00 a.m. and continue until Thursday morning. Be sure to go online at http://www.vcu.edu/sga/elections and make your voice heard. You’ll need the last 10 digits of your VCU Card number and last 4 digits of your Social Security number to be able to vote.