_Andrea Merritt is first-year journalism at MU. She is an opinion columnist who writes about local issues for The Maneater._
Nothing is more terrifying than walking the 0.8 miles from my parking spot to my home in Johnston Hall at night. My parking spot is one of the thousands hidden behind the Hearnes Center, tucked away from campus. If I screamed in the never-ending parking lot, no one would hear me.
The danger and fear students feel from these parking lots are more than real. In the last three months, MU has had 26 reported simple assaults. Simple assaults are anything that is intended to cause harm to another person. Some students have to give up their safety to gain parking for their cars. No person wants to become part of this simple assault statistic, simply, because MU fails to implement more parking near dorms.
MU has attempted to make strides in trying to avoid crime through the Tiger Line; however, it has its faults. The Tiger Line only runs from 5 a.m. to 8 p.m. Monday through Friday in 20-minute intervals. The time of day students truly need a ride — at night — the Tiger Line doesn’t run.
To combat this issue, MU also provides STRIPES, a student-led organization that provides rides to students Thursday through Saturday from 10 p.m. to 3 a.m. Currently, STRIPES is not running at all due to COVID-19. However, in normal years, students are faced with the fear of riding with people they do not know, waiting hours to get a ride, feeling annoying for calling every time and overall social anxiety. If a student wanted to ride with a random person, they could hitchhike.
The final attempt MU has made to help keep students safe is the blue-light emergency phones. They have buttons that students can push and are instantly able to talk to MUPD. In 2010, The Maneater reported that emergency phones cost MU $64,842 annually while remaining ineffective. If someone was intent on inflicting harm, a phone call isn’t going to stop them.
Not only that, but there aren’t enough emergency phones per parking lot. The parking lot, SG5, has no emergency poles. The popular freshman parking lot SG4 has two emergency phones right next to each other, while the parking lot is about 1,233 feet long and 1,386 feet wide. The parking lot at SG7, near Faurot Field, is about 884 feet long and only has one emergency phone. Most students wouldn’t be able to run fast enough to reach a pole in time.
I applaud the efforts MU has made, but it simply isn’t enough. MU needs more parking spots near dorm clusters. They have approached the issue in so many roundabout ways to help the issue, but they need to face it head-on. They need to either allow freshmen to park in the parking garages near dorms that returning students get priority parking of, create more parking lots or allow students to park in the many visitor parking garages. Freshmen, in particular, are usually not acquainted with the area and know fewer people to contact for rides. MU could also work towards allowing the Tiger Line to run constantly, rather than select hours and days. This would help avoid some potential dangers because they would have access to a safe ride to and from their car.
Not only should the safety of students be a priority but also the safety of their belongings. In the last six months on Champion Drive, near SG4 and SG5, there have been two reports of larceny and two reports of property damage.
If nothing else, the parking spots are wildly inconvenient for students to access. The parking permits cost $144 a year, yet it is a chore for students to get to their car. Hypothetically, if only 3,000 out of the 30,849 students at MU bought a parking permit, then MU would make $432,000 in permits alone. Yet, somehow, they can’t find a way to purchase more parking lots. I shouldn’t have to pay that much money on parking on top of the estimated $20,000 I spend on tuition and room and board when my car is in no man’s land. I shouldn’t have to pay for a parking permit that I can’t easily access if I had an emergency or health condition.
During football weekends, MU burdens students who park in these lots to move their cars by Friday at 5 p.m, if not, they will be towed. They have to return their cars by the following Sunday. If students don’t, they will receive a parking ticket. Parking lot SG4 requires students to move for both basketball and football games. Students are being required to adhere to MU’s schedule constantly.
MU is directly contradicting the whole concept of bringing a car to college to avoid fear and inconvenience. The reason students bring their car is to not have to take rides with strangers or hike all the way across town for food. If MU added closer parking or safer transportation opportunities, they could possibly reduce the risk of harm to students, wouldn’t have to regulate student parking during football and basketball games and help avoid inconvenience to students. MU needs to focus their time and money on what really matters, the safety and wellbeing of students.
_In order to help fight racial injustice, the Maneater encourages readers to donate to Equal Initiative Justice, an organization aimed to highlight criminal justice reform. Donate at:
https://support.eji.org/give/153413/#!/donation/checkout_
_Edited by Sydney Lewis | slewis@themaneater.com_
