Those who park on campus are in for a little present from Carleton this school year.
Effective July 2, 2011, it will now cost a $2 flat rate to park on campus Saturdays and Sundays, according to the Carleton University parking services website.
Previously, parking has been free on weekends and a minimum of $6 during the week in the farthest parking lot on campus.
There is absolutely no reason why we should have to pay to park on the weekends.
There are no classes and most services are closed, including health services and most offices.
Most of us only head to campus on weekends to go to the library or gym.
And let’s be serious: there are too few people dedicated to doing either of those things on the weekend to justify the new fee.
You might say that $2 is not that much.
Heck, it barely buys you a cookie at Starbucks.
But $2 adds up.
If you park on campus every weekend for two semesters, it will cost about $100 extra.
To make things even more frustrating, in its online notice, Carleton has given no reason for the parking increase.
I would also like to add that this parking fee increase is not just another reason to use my U-Pass.
Students who drive are already paying for this mandatory pass and in no way get subsidized parking.
Also, even if you have a parking pass, the new fee still applies if you want to park outside your designated lot on weekends — not an unreasonable thing to do if you’re a P7 pass holder.
I gladly use my U-Pass all week long, but on the weekends, when busing isn’t very good and I’m carrying 80 pounds of textbooks to the library, I prefer to drive.
We can go on about the driving debate all we want, but when it comes down to it, this isn’t about whether I should drive a car to school.
It’s about the fact that the university continues to punish students who either choose or need to drive to school.
It may be only two bucks, but that doesn’t make it OK.
—Marina von Stackelberg
third-year journalism
