Recently, SUNY Oswego University Police have ramped up their enforcement of parking rules across campus. 

Students are getting ticketed during the day for parking in the incorrect lots, even in empty lots with dozens of spaces. Oswego already charges a somewhat egregious amount to park on campus for a full year – a $118 fee. Each parking ticket costs $20 to pay off.

The main issue is that students are getting ticketed for parking in the wrong lots, whether it be other residential lots or employee lots. This has caused an immense feeling of annoyance and anger from the student body, which anyone can sense through conversations or looking at Yik Yak. Most of the anger is directed toward “Officer 47,” the UP officer who most frequently assesses these tickets. This is where the first issue with the current state of affairs lies. The ridiculous enforcement procedure is straining the relationship between students and UPD. 

The rules are logical in theory: students living in residential halls should be given permission to park close to their halls, and there should be lots designated for employees. However, the practical implications of enforcing these rules as written can lead to some ridiculous situations.

This brings me into my second point: people already do not care about the rules, and they know they can get away with breaking them at certain times. By making parking in the larger lots open to everyone, there probably will not be a massive number of people who are actually going to be new regular visitors to those lots. The people who drive to class or drive to their events in MCC already do it. 

I propose that anyone who has a pass, whether it be student, commuter or employee should be able to park in any of these lots at any time with no penalty. It is a horrible look for the school to restrict the freedom of people paying an exorbitant amount of money to park on campus. They may need to drive somewhere so that they do not have to walk back home, in a time crunch to head into town after a class or an event ends, or suffering a leg injury and would rather drive to class than walk. 

Oswego should implement this simple change to the parking system because it will cause no practical concern for parking accessibility in the big lots on campus, will lower the financial burden on students who have to pay additional fines on top of the high parking pass fee and increase the freedom and accessibility of students.