A political science professor at Dalhousie University quit his job Aug. 29 when he failed to receive one of the school’s 2,000 coveted parking spots, according to the CBC.
Dan Middlemiss, who had to wait in line for an hour with other professors and students, handed in his resignation, telling the CBC that the situation was “ridiculous.”
“It’s a simple refusal of anyone to deal with the increasing problem of traffic congestion,” Middlemiss told the Vancouver Sun.
This comes after Ken Burt, vice-president of finance and administration at Dalhousie, revealed a week before the start of classes that the school would not oversell parking passes by more than 25 per cent, a drop from last year’s 65 per cent.
Some Dalhousie students said they’ve simply given up on parking on campus.
Ian Wiseman, a fourth-year psychology student at Dalhousie, told the Chronicle Herald he needed to arrive on campus at 8 a.m. to attend a 10 a.m. class if he wanted to be sure to get a spot.
Often, he would end up parking on the street, raking up tickets along the way.
“If you have a couple of classes back-to-back . . . you legitimately can’t park anywhere without being ticketed,” he told the Herald.
“It’s just a problem when you’ve got 20,000 plus people and 2,000 spots,” Middlemiss told the Vancouver Sun in a telephone interview.
According to Burt, the school has been attempting to solve the issue by thinking about “green ways of getting to campus.”
Dalhousie has installed more bike racks and has promoted a carpooling service in an effort to quell the increasing parking demand while encouraging greener transportation to and from campus, according to the Chronicle Herald.
Carleton University still has “adequate [parking] supply to address demand from students and staff,” according to operations manager Brian Billings.
Billings also said Carleton’s parking rates are amongst the province’s lowest.
Dalhousie’s future parking plans are still uncertain, but according to the CBC, there’s the possibility of designated bus passes being given to staff and the eventual construction of a large parking garage fit to accommodate the steep increase in demand.
Middlemiss told the CBC he’d prefer not to deal with it because he used to leave his home at 7 a.m. to teach a 2:30 p.m. class.
Now, he said: “I’m getting old to the point where I’d like my beauty sleep.”
