An Awful Lot of Blue at the Blue Lot

By Tali Zangari/The Voice Assistant Opinion Editor

Nobody likes the blue lot. No one. It’s the best option available to many students, so we take it, but we don’t love it. It’s like the guy in your hallway who’s annoying, but you still deal with him because its easier than trying to tell him off or avoiding him.

The Blue Lot is a catch-22; it’s the inevitable headache of living on campus and bringing a vehicle along for the ride. We all have beefs with the shuttle service, and I’ll beat that dead horse later.

First and foremost, we all know that no one likes parking at the end of the world, but why do so many people insist on making it even more miserable than it needs to be? I think it’s pretty fair to assume that if we all pay the same amount to park there, then maybe we all get one parking space at a time. Some people might think that their shiny ’98 Cavalier deserves more spaces than my dirty ’92 Cherokee, but that’s a pretty selfish assumption on their part. They might think that parking like that is going to protect their car from getting damaged by other careless drivers opening their doors, but parking like that is much more likely to get your car keyed by someone who could’ve parked there if you weren’t being so self-centered.

I love my car just as much as the next person, and I wish I had a safe place to park where no one would dent her, but I refuse to take more than one parking spot. Most people in the Blue Lot, I’m sure, feel the same way, and they only take one spot. There are a handful of people who seem to subscribe to the outlook on life which promotes coloring outside the lines, and perhaps they think that this applies to parking lots as well, but I think parking lots may be one of the places where lines truly serve a purpose. Be considerate, take one spot. If you have trouble maneuvering your hefty car into one spot, I suggest you drive something that you can handle.

Don’t get me wrong. I sometimes struggle to park perfectly. I think we all might park a little crooked from time to time, or that we might be too close to a vehicle on either side of us. Some of us have even gotten notes on our windshield because of our inability to park our cars. Most of us, however, do not blatantly take multiple spaces. Perhaps an issue is that people cannot always see the lines drawn on the dust that is the Blue Lot. This can be easily remedied by parking next to another car, and giving yourself and the other vehicle the standard amount of space.

I believe that one of the biggest causes of the mayhem in the Blue Lot is that people are in such a hurry to park so that they can catch the shuttle. I know the shuttle drivers have a pretty tough job, and that they are all remarkably cheery, considering what they do on a daily basis. I appreciate that. Good job, Drivers. The problem is that there often aren’t enough shuttles running at any given time, so the driver can’t wait in the Blue Lot for people to park perfectly straight, and certainly no one wants to miss the shuttle. This causes people to careen into the first available space, kill the engine, and bolt for the bus, whether or not they have parked straight.

The solution requires several different groups to help out. The university could either make the Blue Lot shack warmer, or run more shuttles so that we don’t catch frostbite on the tundra. University Police could ticket selfish parkers, rather than watching meters by the library and the Recreation Center. Finally, people who have licenses and cars could act as if they earned both of them and know how to handle their vehicle. Until then, the 95 percent of people who park in the Blue Lot and follow the rules, are going to be unfairly punished for those who can’t remember how to get their cars between the lines.