Editor:
Re: your front page article on Oct. 12 ("Park Ave. garage gives 189 reserved spaces to visitors"): we in Music have received many complaints from faculty and students since the removal of 189 reserved spaces for visitor parking. The situation had been barely tolerable until the change; now it is a real hardship for many of us. The statement that active permit holders "should not be 'significantly harmed'" is simply not realistic.
My main concern is the statement that the visitor spaces "came about through requests by ... the College of Fine Arts, which wanted to have more parking available for activities." We have been working actively with Parking and Transportation to improve the situation for our elderly and handicapped patrons, who are unable to attend events because of the lack of any close parking facility. The new visitor spaces will not help them Ÿ in fact, it now looks as if evening parking, formerly free, will now be charged!
Re: the statement "when the garage was built in 1987, there wasn't the need for visitor parking because McClelland Hall and the Fine Arts Complex (sic) were not built at the time": the Fine Arts Complex (and many of us in it) has been in the same location since the 1950s. We have watched the steady erosion of parking places to new construction without adequate additional parking. As both students and faculty have found it harder and harder to get to campus, the price for doing so has steadily risen Ÿ "driven by the market," as I have been told by parking officials. Add to this queer philosophy the galling fact that ASU charges $105 per year for its many conveniently located parking structures, as compared with our fee of $260 for a hunting license where the game is just about extinct.
Elizabeth Ervin
Interim Associate Director, School of Music and Dance