The issue of parking in Elon’s Global Neighborhood is most certainly apparent to all its residents with a car, and even others as well. Global has a reputation for having extremely limited parking, with the ratio of parking spots to students living in the neighborhood with cars being extremely unbalanced. Anyone who lives in Global can hardly ever find parking after dark due to such limited spaces available. Even during the day, free spaces are hard to come by. Why such a small lot for such a large neighborhood?

The lack of parking spaces in the Global lot creates a plethora of conflicts: students have to park incredibly far from Global and walk all the way back to their dorms, quite frequently in the dark. And with the cancellation of SafeRides, the trek is both intimidating and, at times, dangerous. Students then are forced to move their car from the lot they’ve parked in for the night before 7 a.m. the next morning— and oftentimes, parking still isn’t available in the Global lot when they return. There just simply isn’t enough space for everyone to follow this routine. And many times, students in Global are sick (due to the frequency of illnesses among freshmen) and have to make this walk after driving to the health center, while being unfit to walk such a distance (especially in extreme heat or cold). The situation of the lot being completely full after dark proves also to be a disadvantage to students who have jobs, as most of these students work in the evenings. It is unfair and unsafe to those working late shifts to have to park far from their dorms and walk back, often with aching feet from working long hours-- and to have to do this on a regular basis is entirely unreasonable.

Students who have complained about the lack of parking available have been told that additional parking hasn’t been built because it “wouldn’t look nice.” But what isn’t “nice” is cash-strapped, student-loan-laden students paying $50 for a parking pass, only to not be able to park in the lot they paid for. It is only fair to the students of Global, and to those of other neighboring lots whose parking spots are being taken by our abundant overflow of cars, that we have additional parking space made. We can acknowledge and appreciate that an additional row has been removed from the faculty/staff area and given to students, yet this simply isn't enough space. An opportune location would be the wooded area to the west of Hunt Field, and upon construction, students who use their cars less frequently can be encouraged to park there. In Elon's 2016 master plan, this area appears to be a future parking lot, though it is never discussed within the text of the plan, so we have no way of knowing when or if it will ever be constructed. Every student I have talked to about the issue of parking in Global is well-familiarized with it due to either personal experience, or the reputation that has made its way across campus. It is important to all of us in the Global Neighborhood, and even those outside of it, that this issue be fixed as soon as possible.