By now, many students at Bellevue College have found out that parking at the college will be difficult for a while. Whether you get here early or late in the day, chances are you will spend a large amount of time just trying to find a spot. The college got rid of many parking spots due to the construction of a new building, leaving a lot of students without parking.
Students are now forced to get to the school much earlier than normal, take the bus, carpool with others or park a distance away from the school and walk. To me, this seems like a double-edged sword.
I think that this parking situation is a bit of a joke and could have been avoided.
Many students have spent over 30 minutes circling around parking lots looking for spots, only to find one, but not in enough time to avoid being late for their first class. I have been one of those victims. With some teachers having strict attendance policies, being late from parking problems can cause a lot of academic problems. The problems are also affecting teachers, who are also arriving late to class which causes classroom problems and shorter class times.
The bright side of the parking problems is that it would promote carpooling and bus usage which is something that BC has been promoting for years. Sustainability is a direction the school has been going for, towards a while now, and this would help the cause just as well. While this may not be what the school was planning for, it does help with what the school strives to become.
Overall, I think that this parking situation is one that is really affecting the students and the college. Students and teachers are forced to wait large amounts of time just to find a parking spot which makes it hard to be on time all the time. There are some possible solutions I think the school could do. I think they could either make a temporary lot to help with the lowered amount of spaces. This would just be a temporary solution, but would still help. Another solution; lower what the college has implemented, the cost at the reduced pass is for lots 1, 3 and 5 ranges from $50 to $40. It could be free to park everywhere, or make a temporary pass to park in other lots so others would be more accepting to buy a pass. The other solution is to just use the bus routes or carpool with friends to cut the number of spots needed down a bit. Whatever the solution may be, it would be better than leaving the parking situation as it is right now.