In my three years here at Clemson, I have learned a lot and cherish all my experiences and memories at this wonderful school. However, I do not cherish the countless amount of time I have wasted trying to find parking.
As an architecture students, most of us spend many nights in Lee Hall, thus requiring strict time management. One thing that can’t be accounted for, however, is the frustration and inconvenience of parking our car as we start our day. Classes begin at 8 a.m., so the lots begin filling in at 7:30 a.m. If one comes in 7 minutes past 8 a.m., they cannot find anything until 9 a.m.
This problem can easily be solved by building a parking garage in the hill along Perimeter Road between Kappa Street and Lambda Street. Building into the hill and using shrubbery to camouflage will hide the garage, decreasing the negative aesthetic effects that usually come with parking garages of this size.
As the university grows in population, many elements of Clemson benefit, including facilities on campus, salaries of professors, the school’s budget for providing an exemplary education and the overall experience obtained by being part of the Clemson family. While growth equals progress, it does have its burdens. In the case of parking, those burdens are space limitations and a responsibility to keep Clemson as beautiful as possible. Many other universities have had this same issue and reacted similarly to the universal problem of parking. By building a parking garage at the base of campus, students would get convenient parking instead of wasting time finding a convenient parking spot or walking from that parking spot to the other side of campus, resulting in getting to class late and sweating.
By building parking garages for those that live on campus and reserving open lots for commuters, the need for students to move their cars to the further lots would be prevented. Land would also be made available for the University to continue to expand while efficiently using the space it has allocated for itself inside of Perimeter Road.
Clemson University is growing, and it is time for this college to stop ignoring the problem and devise a solution.
Clemson’s foothill location should be used as an advantage, and the parking deck should be built into the hill. Only one level of parking would be visible when looking to the south from campus, and many more spots in the same footprint would be available. The parking deck solution would provide improved parking while not taking away from the beautiful campus that has evolved from many years of care and pride.