Since the dawn of time, nothing has caused mankind more drama
than the strange relationship between the vehicle and the parking
space. They share a troublesome connection that is both symbiotic
and hostile. Vehicles need places to park, and parking spaces only
exist because the vehicles need them. They need each other, but for
some reason are always at odds. Even in the middle ages,
prehistoric Ford Fiestas gnashed their teeth at red curbs and
strip-mall parking squares, and this unruly relationship has
continued to plague mankind throughout history.
Here at UCLA, the problem seems amplified by an overwhelming
number of vehicles and a lack of safe places to park them. On
campus, students must shell out $171 per quarter for a permit to
park in a lot. But these permits are in such high demand that to
get one, you almost have to sell your soul to the transportation
department devil.
When a system contains so many hoops and so much red tape,
people are sometimes forced into a corner and end up doing things
they normally wouldn’t do. Some people may find themselves
using pirated staff parking permits or lying on their applications
to increase their chances of getting a spot. Some might be forced
even further into the depths of felonious commuting.
I wasn’t issued a parking permit this quarter and have
thus experienced many of these problems firsthand. Without a
permit, I can’t officially park on campus; at my place in
West Los Angeles, I don’t have my own parking spot. All the
street parking around my place is limited to two hours, so I really
don’t have many options.
For me, the only immediate solution to this on-campus parking
issue has been to bend a couple of rules and cut a few corners. I
can’t give you all the details, but I found a way to sneak my
car into the lot. And once inside, I just park. That’s right:
no permit, no meter, and definitely no payment involved whatsoever.
I bootleg parking spots, I cheat the system, and I don’t feel
bad about it at all.
Lets be honest here, even if I did take the bus or ride a bike
to school (which is an incredible inconvenience), I don’t
have anywhere to leave my car while I’m gone. I’ve
already gotten more than my fair share of tickets from those rabid
parking-enforcement thugs and I really can’t afford to get
any more. I’ve been towed on multiple occasions for parking
issues, and I refuse to give those dogs any more money.
Most tow yards charge $177 for the tow and an additional $30 for
each day the car stays on the lot. An employee at the Swanney &
McDonald towing company estimated that his company alone sees close
to 500 cars every week.
Swanney & McDonald is only one of 17 companies listed as
“Official Police Garages” on the Los Angeles Parking
Violations Bureau Web site , so you can imagine the amazing amount
of cash raked in each year by the tow yards and probably the
city.
If I leave my car at home, I get ticketed or towed, and I
can’t drive to school because I can’t get a parking
permit. The city has a monopoly on street parking, and the school
has a monopoly on campus parking, so you’re really not safe
anywhere.
The only way to really play it safe would be to drive to a place
where I could leave my car for the day, then walk to a bus stop to
catch the bus to school. Sure, it’s possible, but I really
can’t be bothered to go through all that ““ I have far
too many books to read and beers to drink. So, what’s a poor
college slacker like me to do?
Since I can’t leave my car at home, I feel like I need a
campus permit, but according to UCLA Transportation Services and
its “need-based points system,” apparently I
don’t need one enough. This point system is used to determine
who gets a parking spot, or as the employees like to say, who gets
“parked” for the quarter.
Here’s how the game works: Undergraduates start with 10
points, while graduate students get 19. Students with one or more
children, aged 0-2, only get an extra five points; you get 10
points for off-campus employment and four points for an on-campus
job. Whoever gets the most points wins.
To put this into perspective, a hypothetical undergraduate
mother with a 2-year-old child, and an on-campus job would be tied
for parking points with a graduate student. Furthermore, as soon as
that child turns 3, the points change and the graduate student gets
priority.
To be fair, graduate students do a lot of important research and
can make the university some much-needed money (perhaps money for
more parking spaces?), so it only seems natural that the university
would want to give some perks to these students.
But what about our hypothetical mother and her hypothetical
starving children? And what about me and my selfish and nonsensical
too-far-to-walk, too-lazy-to-take-the-bus predicament?
There must be a solution to this age-old problem.
And who better to come up with this solution than our very own
research-doing, parking-space-having graduate students? To save
some time, I did a bit of research on my own, and I can honestly
say that the only truly viable solution (short of a parking lot
coup d’etat) is to use some sort of Star Trek-type
teleportation device. (I can’t believe that hasn’t even
been suggested yet.)
Until then, I’ll see you in the shadowy depths of the
parking structures, trying not to get caught.
How do you cheat the system? Tell Deitchman your secrets at
jdeitchman@media.ucla.edu. Send general comments to
viewpoint@media.ucla.edu.