Gameday parking is a real hassle

It is that time of year again when fellow Cougars come together in Martin Stadium to watch the first home football game of the season. Campus will be packed with alumni, fans and students all ready to tailgate and enjoy the game but the parking will, as usual, be hellish.

As most students know there are different parking lots located around campus ranging in price.  Students are allowed to purchase permits for the Yellow, Red and Blue lots, and residential students and those who live on campus can purchase permits for the Crimson or Gray lots, according to the WSU parking website.

What many students probably don’t know is that on game days members of the Cougar Athletic Fund receive preferential treatment. They are given designated parking depending on how much they donate. The higher the donation to the Athletic Fund, the closer the parking to Martin Stadium donors will receive, according to Transportation Services.

As for students and fans that are not members of the Cougar Athletic Fund there is general admission parking for $20 in the blue and yellow lots. What this policy ignores is the fact that these are parking spots that have already been paid for by students for use throughout the year.

This would be an OK situation if there were any leftover parking spots for the students who actually rented the yellow and blue lot permits, but usually that is not the case.

According Transportation Services, students who purchase yellow lot parking permits risk the price of getting ticketed if their vehicle is parked in the lot during game days. How is this fair to the students who pay $274.96 for the permit?

Not only do yellow permit holders risk the cost of being ticketed, but they also don’t have a place to park. The same can be said for blue permit holders.

Effectively this violation is equivalent to the university kicking out residents from their apartments on game days so that visitors have a place to stay. This is a situation that is unfair to students.

In this horrific mess the one positive is that Transportation Services does offer alternative off-campus parking at the five nearby churches around campus. The churches are: Community Congregational United Church of Christ, Concordia Lutheran Church, Presbyterian Church of Pullman, Sacred Heart Church, and Trinity Lutheran Church, according to the Transportation Services website.

Pullman transit is also teaming up with Washington State University Athletics in providing free transit service on home football game days; though it should be noted that Athletics are the ones selling the students spots. This does alleviate some of the parking headaches.

Although it is a rotten situation, students are not in control of what happens during game days. Hopefully visitors will end up using the off-campus parking and taking the Pullman transit first before taking the parking spots of those yellow and blue permit holders, but that seems unlikely.

-Marissa Mararac is a junior communication communication major from Tacoma. She can be contacted at 335-2290 or by [email protected]. The opinions expressed in this Column are not necessarily those of the staff of The Daily Evergreen or those of Student Publications.