Parking is something everyone has an opinion about, whether it’s about handicapped parking, parking tickets or the parking lot size of SeaWorld compared to the size of Shamu’s tank.  

I’m a first semester freshman at USI this year who lives on campus in the apartments and owns a car.  That being said, I also have my fair share of opinions on parking.  

I personally find it completely aggravating that I am not allowed to drive my car anywhere on the campus other than the parking lot for my building. It’s great that they at least have a bus route setup.  

Figuring out how to get the campus bus schedule lined up with your particular class schedule is difficult.

One has to find a perfect balance so they don’t arrive to class thirty minutes to an hour early or, god forbid, late.

For a lot of new freshman that can be really stressful.  

I’m one of the lucky few that lives fairly close to the university.   As long as the weather is nice, and it has been so far, I will walk, which I can’t complain too much about.  

Therefore, I haven’t had to figure out the bus schedule yet, but it’s something I’m not looking forward to.

According to usi.edu’s enrollment trends statistics, 75 percent of campus’ students are commuters. Bearing that in mind, , I have noticed that while the parking lot does have a lot of cars in it, it is not always necessarily full.  

I’ve always been able to find a parking space.

Because 75 percent of students are commuters that obviously means that 25 percent live on campus.  

I’m not oblivious to the reasons as to why residents are unable to park anywhere except the parking lots to which they are assigned.  

I’m just saying that if only 25 percent of students live in apartments or residence halls then why can’t campus have a parking lot for those students?  

Commuters complain that they have to walk from the “back” of the parking lot to their classes.  Just keep in mind that residents have to walk even further. Why not build an overflow lot for commuter students since campus is constantly adding new buildings and updating existing parking lots anyway? It would be a practical and useful project that would be worth the time and money invested.