Parking isn’t a real issue

Conor Moore | Assistant Opinion Director

It’s a common sentiment held by students and faculty alike that finding parking at FIU is a dreaded endeavor. Unless you’re a disabled student, complaining about parking availability feels redundant especially in light of actual problems on campus.

The act of finding a parking spot isn’t difficult. There are plenty of garages on campus that have hundreds of empty spaces throughout the day, if you don’t park in Blue or Gold.

We all know FIU is a commuter school. Campus accounts for that problem nicely, even with close to 60,000 students.

Whenever I commute to campus, I see dozens of students and faculty driving around the aforementioned garages looking for spots, likely sweating in the blistering heat, but it’s not worth it.

You might get lucky if someone leaves and you’re the first person to get there, but you’re better off going to a garage that consistently has empty space like PG 3 and PG5. Yes, they’re a bit farther, but that should be expected.  

The campus is huge, so walking long distances is a given when attending FIU. If walking takes too long, you can also invest in a scooter or bicycle.

If you find yourself having to walk a bit more to get to your class on time, then leave your house earlier.

I understand that some don’t have that luxury, which is unfortunate, but it’s better than sifting through an ocean of parked cars hoping you land a cozy third-floor spot in Gold.

Despite being a large campus, it’s deceptively easy to get around. Most buildings are at most ten-to-fifteen minutes away from each other.

I’m also not entirely sure that building more garages is the solution. If they’re already hundreds of empty spots, why waste time, money and resources into building even more of them? Especially when available space is already far from where people want the parking to begin with.

What about using that space to construct more housing for students?

However, you can make a case that disabled students are at a disadvantage. It’s an objectively adverse thing if someone disabled cannot find parking in a spot close to campus- that is a real issue.

I notice only a handful of spots marked as disabled in each parking garage. Given FIU’s prominent disabled community and representation, there should be more of them in each garage.

This is an issue that puts people who need the spaces at a disadvantage. In this case, more reserved spots would remedy this issue.

Parking at FIU isn’t perfect. It would be nice if some of the garages were closer but there are bigger issues on campus that we as students face every day.

DISCLAIMER:

The opinions presented on this page do not represent the views of the PantherNOW Editorial Board. These views are separate from editorials and reflect individual perspectives of contributing writers and/or members of the University community.