This past week, a number of my friends received tickets from campus security for a variety of reasons. Tickets irritate a lot of people, and for good reason — but it makes me wonder how the campus can improve its issues with parking and the tickets associated with those issues.

In defense of the school — it is not easy to get more parking for students. The school’s campus is very tiny and very densely packed with buildings. We don’t want Union bulldozing our beloved gardens, and there isn’t too much space for expansion outside of the campus. There’s plenty of parking at CPH, but many people dislike this parking, especially in the winter, because of how far the walk to campus is. Another issue in the winter is the fact that large snow banks take up dozens of spots, making it harder and more inconvenient for commuting students or professors to find parking spots. In trying to fix this issue, Union College facilities should be mindful to put snow in the best, more convenient places in parking lots like the Richmond parking lot.

There is no exceptionally easy answer to this issue, but I think that it could be helpful to some students for some places on campus to be made more available for parking. For instance, in Reamer Circle, it could be a good idea to allow longer durations of parking at certain times, like nighttime or very early morning. This could cut down on unnecessary tickets, which is always very helpful for the student body.

Also, I do not think that it would be unreasonable for the school to lower the cost of some of the tickets. Attending Union, buying expensive textbooks and other expenses are already a huge burden on students — it isn’t necessary to give expensive tickets unless the person is really parked in a dangerous or irresponsible manner because it can make people angry with campus security.