The Laramie City Council is considering possible fixes for the parking problem around UW’s campus, and one idea, mentioned by City Councilman Joe Shumway in a recent BI story, is to implement a four-block buffer zone of residential permit parking around UW.
This solution is proposed as a means to help Laramie residents near UW’s campus that routinely lose parking spots close to their homes to students trying to get to class, and while the aim of this solution is understandable, this is the wrong approach to fixing the community’s parking problem.
Moving the area students can park back a couple of blocks will not fix the problem of community residents losing parking places, it will only relocate it. Students will walk the extra blocks to class, only slightly inconvenienced. A new set of Laramites will complain to City Council about a lack of parking in front of their homes.
Instead of prolonging the parking issue with a small move, the Laramie City Council should pursue a long-term solution to the problem: a parking garage at UW. This is truly the only way to stem the never-ending tide of students desperate for a place to park. If the council collaborated with the board of trustees on a parking garage, or even made an appeal to the trustees for one, the process of building a garage could be expedited tremendously.
Laramie has a substantial interest in preventing students from parking in front of residents’ homes, and the best way to address that interest is to ensure UW students, the city’s biggest source of revenue, can park elsewhere. A garage is not just good for UW students, it’s good for the community as a whole.
by Elliot Hunt ehunt4@uwyo.edu
