Letter to the Editor
To the Mills Community:
Having only this year been in a position to own a car, I was unaware of the stresses, frustrations, and demonstrations of thoughtlessness that came with vehicular mobility at Mills.
Maybe I was misinformed, but I was under the impression that residential parking spots were just that: residential spots.
So why is it that upon returning from my morning job, I rarely find a place to park on the same side of campus at my dorm? Correct me if I’m wrong, but it seems that the parking lot for dorm residents should be near the resident’s hall itself.
Out of sheer frustration, I’ve started to curse at commuter cars whenever I see them in the clearly-marked-as-residential spot I vacated that same day. My discomfort with my own animosity has prompted me to speak up and write to our community.
There is plenty of commuter parking available in other areas actually designated as “Commuter.” This is a fact: I am often parking in those locations. I hope you can see why this is a little frustrating.
One of the appeals of the lot specified here is that it is located closer to some areas of campus. However, our campus is quite small: the average person can walk from one side to the other in ten minutes — calculated by personal experience from the not-at-all-athletic individual writing. Parking in a farther location is a very minor inconvenience (unless you have a condition which makes it a problem to comfortably walk the distance in a reasonable amount of time).
Perhaps one of the most unpleasant aspects of this issue is that Public Safety does nothing to enforce where people park until the evening. This is a pointless and useless policy. It is the daytime parking issues which are a problem for residents like myself.
I do not wish to frame this as commuter versus resident. Let’s not start a war over parking. But at this point in my frustration, I believe that Public Safety should hold commuters accountable for parking in residential locations.
And I ask commuters: do you really need to park in spots not labeled as “Commuter”?
Sincerely,
Rose Lopez
sophomore
