Living off campus is a great experience. My apartment is nice, my upstairs and downstairs neighbors aren’t bad, and I pay less in rent and food than it cost me to live on campus. Of course, living off campus comes with its own set of problems—in particular, parking.
Right now, I live so close to campus that I’m about the same distance away from my classes as I was when I actually lived on Freshman Hill. This is actually a curse in disguise—many other RPI students also live on my street—leaving street-side parking spaces in high demand. To make matters worse, the parking lot my building shares with an adjacent building is too small for everyone’s cars.
Being a nuclear engineer, I have classes at the NES Building on Tibbits Avenue, which is a 25 minute walk from my apartment. Since it is this far away, I often drive, therefore risking the loss of my highly-sought-after parking space. This means when I return, I’ll often end up parking on the street.
Parking on the street isn’t so bad, however, on nights and weekends. If I’m returning during the day this quickly becomes a different story. This is when my distance to campus begins to work to my disadvantage. The real problem with parking in my area lies in the tendency of non-resident students taking our spaces.
I’m sure part of the issue is that all the students who live in the apartments are around for their own classes. It’s also because everyone who wants to go to campus parks on my street and around the corner, leaving no spaces for those of us who actually live in the area.
I can understand why people don’t want to park at the Field House. It’s far away and you have to pay. To the non-resident, it’s pretty convenient to park on my street. This causes problems for those of us who live in the area and cannot find a space.
There seems to be no quick solution to this problem. Perhaps RPI should work together with the City of Troy to help monitor and enforce parking on local public streets in favor of the residents. Other solutions are possible—parking meters in the street spaces would accomplish the job and residents can be issued special parking permits so they could be exempt from paying any charges.
