What were these residents doing before RPP went into action? Were they parking on the lawn? Perhaps the roof?

Picture the ultimate of crappy mornings: You wake up late and therefore get to school late, and quickly park and run to class. After class, you find a $30 citation on your car because you parked in an RPP area. Now, I can't say this has happened to me, because I take the bus since my tuition automatically pays for a UPASS. But, let's not go there just yet. The new rules for the Resident Preferred Parking program allow only residents to park on certain sides of certain streets between 7 a.m. and 7 p.m. A free permit is limited to two per household. So basically, the city took away parking spots around the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee campus so residents would have more places to park and students would spend more money they don't have and be S.O.L. I'm sorry, but what were these residents doing before RPP went into action? Were they parking on the lawn? Perhaps the roof? Obviously they managed to find somewhere to park their car before, so what gives? I'm pretty sure the population didn't increase so much so that the neighborhood needed hundreds of parking spaces. UWM is quite overpopulated, but I highly doubt the population is so large that they needed over 2,000 extra places to park. The UWM Post reported last week that 810 citations were given out the first week RPP went into action and $24,300 in tickets were given out.

That's absolutely ridiculous, considering students are some of the poorest people in the country with rising tuition costs and unknown added fees. A couple of graduate students did an analysis on the RPP situation and found that even after UWM adds the 1,000 spaces from Columbia St. Mary's, the campus will still be down more than 700 parking spaces. That means UWM needs to do one of two things (both would only happen in a magical fairyland): One, stop accepting so many people; Or two, make the people you do accept take the bus.

We all know that UWM is highly overpopulated, so by not accepting so many new people each year, the parking situation may be under better control. That, or continue to accept too many people, but encourage them to take the bus.

I don’t grasp the concept of not taking the bus. It’s paid for in your tuition and there are tons of routes to choose from. I’m a commuter and I think it’s perfect, especially with rising gas costs.

RPP certainly still needs a little tweaking, but the UWM students affected by the change need to accept it and find alternatives. It’s called M.C.T.S. – use it, save money. Problem solved.

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