The Voice: Few solutions exist for parking woes

Seton Hall has never been particularly great at ensuring enough parking spaces on campus for students during the height of daytime classes.

Whether the concern is the size of parking spaces, students making their own spaces or simply a lack of parking, students often have problems centered around parking on campus. The recent snowfalls have not made Seton Hall's parking problems any easier.

As students, we sympathize with students who face parking problems, however, we also recognize the reality that possible remedies available to the University are severely limited.

The University must maintain a minimum size of parking spaces, and thus cannot increase the number available by decreasing their already-small size. The only way to increase the number of spaces on campus would be for the University to undertake a major construction initiative. Any construction to build a new parking deck, possibly in the place of the surface lots behind Xavier, Neumann and Serra halls would significantly inconvenience students, faculty and staff, and would undoubtedly anger some people, especially if the improvements could not be completed over the summer.

Because of the limitations, The Setonian believes students need to deal with the situation. Seton Hall has done what it can to cope with this year's large snowfalls. In order to maximize safety and clearly delineate parking spaces, Seton Hall works to clear parking lots as soon as possible, however that has led to the use of certain lots, such as those Turrell and Cabrini, being used for snow storage.

In our front page story on the weather related parking problems, John Signorello, associate vice president of Facilities and Operations, said Seton Hall is using those lots to avoid the cost of having the snow removed from campus altogether. While closing lots is not the most convenient option, we hope students will bear with the University until spring arrives and the snow is gone.

Maybe, with some luck, Seton Hall will begin a capital campaign to address the insufficient parking situation and raise the money to construct a second parking deck on campus.