Oakland Parking Plan Unrealistic

I hate parking in Oakland. I’m pretty sure everyone does. If you’re lucky enough to find a… I hate parking in Oakland. I’m pretty sure everyone does. If you’re lucky enough to find a meter within three blocks of your destination, you’ll still probably get a ticket for street cleaning, or being in the very rational “No parking after 4 p.m.” section.

Every day people jam their cars into the areas near any vehicle unfortunate enough to have 7 feet in front or behind it, leaving almost every bumper on campus with the appearance of a “Trading Spaces” color swatch.

That said, the idea of covering the Schenley parking lot with grass and chairs is just stupid. Don’t get it wrong; parks are important places, especially within a city, but Schenley Park is already very large. What are we really adding by converting this lot?

According to Wanda Wilson, senior planner for the city’s Department of City Planning (who obviously hasn’t ever tried to park in Oakland), they “understand that parking is a big issue, but it is only an issue during that peak time period.”

Which public relations intern wrote this crap? Congratulations, Pittsburgh, parking is not an issue at 2:30 on Sunday night. Anyone who has driven on campus during the day can attest to the fact that people literally line up around the block to access the Schenley parking lot.

Replacing 280 spaces with 110 meters only makes their “big issue” even worse. Just because other garages and parking lots on the opposite side of campus have approximately enough spots, that does not mean this is some fantastic idea whose time has come — especially with Pitt building a new Bio Tower — and to hell with parking.

Parking here is going to be like parking at New York University, which is to say it basically won’t be feasible. Unfortunately, Oakland isn’t Manhattan, and our mass transit system is a farce.

This project is a perfect example of some people in an office building with too much time on their hands. The park sounds cute, and I’m surepeople who donate money to Pitt so that we can have new wildflowers every week will think it’s fantastic, but I’m hard-pressed to believe that campus residents want to trade their parking in for wireless Internet access.

Wilson also indicated a hope for clean restrooms (won’t happen), movable seating (two weeks before all chairs are stolen or covered in graffiti), and “constant, scrupulous maintenance?”

I guess the budget for maintenance will come from all the parking tickets they write at those 110 new meters.

Caleb Wallace

School of Information Sciences

Pittsburgh