For $3 a day paying for a park on campus, it should be a hell of a lot easier to find a space, but apparently, everyone and their mother wants to circle the place as soon as I do too. I’m living in self-catered accommodation, and there’s still not enough parking for us. As much as the rise of petrol prices would cause a huge amount of problems, it might at least mean there’s more parking spots if people stop commuting to university as much. I have to carefully time my comings and goings, otherwise I’ll come back and there’s nowhere for me to park, and the last thing I want to do is park my car on the road overnight. Hamilton will be Hamilton, and I want my wheels to still be attached when I go back the next day.
When I knew I was going to be living on campus, I applied for a reserved carpark that would just be for my car and my car only. It would cost $350 for the whole year as opposed to paying for a non-reserved park at $90 per trimester, but I’d pay that much more to know that there’d always be a space for me. With the carnage of fighting for a park, I couldn’t care less about the extra cost. I thought that living self-catered on campus would give me more of a priority against fully-catered people since I need to go out and get groceries, but no, apparently the people who assign the parks couldn’t really give a shit why you need it. Give all the reserves to the fully catered people, I’m so grateful for that. I’m sure they have their reasons too why they need it, but I’m a petty person, and I’m mad about it.
The university obviously has the money to create more parking spots – they’re building a new medical building for God’s sake – but it doesn’t seem like we’ll be getting a fix on that anytime soon. I can’t blame the one or two people every year that choose to park in the lake; it’s easier.
We asked the student body what they thought about the parking situation, and the results spoke for themselves. Everyone thinks it’s shit, as they should.
What is the parking at UOW like?
7% – just fine
93% – ABSOLUTELY AWFUL
