E-lot manifesto

I hate trying to park on this campus. Every weekend, it's the same thing: Everyone and their mother with an E pass parks in the 24-hour D pass spots. I am getting pretty tired of it. And why shouldn't I? I paid for the pass to park in the spot, so why shouldn't I have the chance to actually park there?\nAccording to the Parking Operations Web site, D-1 permits can park at "dorm residents of Read, Forest, Willkie, University East and University West Apartments." E passes can park in the lots at the stadium or in non-24 hour A and C spots after 5 p.m. during the week and all day during the weekend. \nFor anyone who lives in the dorms with a D pass, parking near the dorms is a nightmare. This results from the University not enforcing the 24-hour zones of all D spots. Therefore, people bring their cars from the stadium and park them in the D lots, taking up parking spaces that are supposed to be reserved for people with a D pass. It's infuriating for me, a resident of Forest, to not have a spot for a pass I paid for.\nHowever, I do not blame the E pass owners for this. It's the fault of Parking Operations because of their inconsistent ticketing policy. The signs say D spots are 24-hour ticketing spots, but E pass-ers won't get tickets if they park in the D lots on the weekends. However, if you park in a C lot, which isn't a 24-hour spot, you will get a ticket. But there are some students who follow the rules and buy a weekend D pass so they can park in the lot. I find this behavior irrational because if these people paid attention, they would realize that Parking Operations doesn't ticket D-pass spots on the weekend. So why spend the money on an unnecessary pass?\nTo solve this problem, I offer two solutions: The first solution is to enforce the rules, and the second solution is to build an E lot on the south side of campus.\nMy first solution is just a novel idea. If Parking Operations actually enforced its policies, I could still park where I am authorized to park, and Parking Operations might make more money off parking tickets and weekend passes. For weekend passes to work, though, they would need to sell more than two per dorm like they do now.\nMy second idea would be to build an E lot on the south side of campus. By doing this, the University could get rid of every other dorm lot on campus and make everyone park in one of two E lots. This would solve the parking problem, and it would make the campus look much better, because there would be no more dorm parking lots. This would also allow the people on the south side of campus to have full access to their cars and not make the E pass people walk 30 minutes to their cars.\nAnother benefit would be that when the people who park at the stadiums have to move their cars for ball games, they could just park in the other E lot. This would stop them from trying to find a place in the city to park. Besides, if people didn't have their cars by the dorms, they could just walk or take the bus, which would give people more physical activity and/or reduce pollution. Besides, do we really need to have our cars at the dorm?\nSo, Parking Operations, either enforce your rules about who can park where or do away with the passes and build us an E lot on the south side.