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As the university has less and less available housing, off-campus students will become more and more numerous. This has created current and forseeable parking problems for the university. Over the past year, the administration has faced complaints regarding the parking lot behind East Quad, a place where formerly only students could park, but now staff members are able to use the spots. This coupled with the notion that next year, students will experience even more limited parking because of construction, specifically in X-Lot, has created the idea of an all out parking crisis for Brandeis students.

It is important for our administration to try and reaffirm that Brandeis, is in fact, doing everything it can to make the situation better, and that the construction is taking place only in order to benefit the students in the long run. The administration can attempt to make an unaviodably bad situation into something much less cumbersome for the Brandeis student.

There are several ways to improve the situation in the short run. The best way of avoiding a complete overflow of parking next year is to encourage the usage of public transportation. This could best be done through an extended shuttle system, or a more frequent running of the Branvan service. The university could also direct students to purchase bicycles. A bike ride from Grad to Shapiro is little over a five minute ride on a busy day. Encouraging car pooling and planning ahead would at least be a good start in curing a problem that the administration does not yet have the definitive answer to. Perhaps the university could give priority to students who either live further away from campus or are able to specify a satisfactory reason for possible parking priority.

The idea that the administration should remain idle and hope that after the dust clears from all of the construction things will be satisfactory will only infuriate students who are already alienated from the housing process.