Parking for both on-campus and commuter students and staff at Colorado Mesa University (CMU) has been notorious in the past for its inability to accommodate the growing campus.
Though commuter parking may now be available and expanding, a majority of the massive and ever-growing on-campus community is left in the dust.
It would be unfair to say there is no parking for on-campus students. If you’re a Bunting resident there is always a guaranteed spot, even if it’s far away, muddy and reminiscent of a construction site.
Likewise, you can always take your chances with finding a spot in the Garfield lot and its mysterious construction zone, where I have never actually seen a construction worker.
Yet, if you live in Walnut, Tolman, Rait, Piñon, or Monument and you don’t want to walk all the way from Garfield, you might as well assume you don’t have a spot.
The two miniature lots located next to Piñon and across 12th Street, while absolutely an upgrade in quality from the Bunting lot, frankly have fewer parking spots than passes sold to students.
In the two weeks since classes have started there have been several occasions in which the lots have been completely full, causing students to have to park in front of houses, on the sides of streets or the abandoned Rite Aid lot.
None of these alternatives may seem extreme enough to cause concern; yet, the variety of consequences students must often face for parking in these spots is ridiculous considering they already paid for a reserved spot.
From awkward lectures from homeowners for parking in front of their house to unsafe and long walks from an off-campus location and the $250 retrieval fee if your car is towed from the CVS lot, the obscenity of the entire situation is clear.
While there is no overnight solution, there seems to be plenty of opportunities and plans for expansion of which parking should be a priority. The exact details of the abandoned CVS are unclear, yet it doesn’t seem unfeasible to acquire the space for the much-needed parking lot.
At the very least it would make sense to begin campus expansion in the lot, especially considering the turnover of businesses in that area compared to the prominence of campus and its inherent need for expansion.
CMU is a rapidly growing university in Colorado, leading to a lot of varying issues the administration has to deal with; therefore, it would be unfair to persecute them for having failed students in this department.
Yet, with a potential solution right across the street, it’s only fair that the student body’s struggles are made clear.
