Student circulates game day parking petition

To Lauren McCafferty, game day parking should be very simple.

"If you pay $5 at a basketball game but I pay $20,000 in tuition, that parking spot is more mine than yours," she said.

This attitude spurred the junior majoring in biology to take action –— she started a petition on Change.org, a site that hosts petitions for various social causes, in December.

Once affiliated with the website, any member can sign the petition asking UT to "stop reserving parking for attendees of weekday athletic events."

McCafferty said she first noticed students were discontent with game day parking when she served as a resident advisor, a job she performed for almost two years. A proclaimed advocate, she couldn't let the complaints of her residents go unanswered.

"We're really here to be helping the residents to make them feel at home here, because it is their home," she said.

Using her position as a UT Journals student blogger, McCafferty posted a blog entry entitled "The Parking Chronicles" on Dec. 7.

Shortly after, she created the petition.

"I didn't want to raise my fist at the university — I just wanted to bring attention to it," McCafferty said.

Initially concerned about the waves her posts might have created, McCafferty was disappointed about the lack of feedback from the administration.

She was contacted by a member of Student Government through email about the possibility of creating legislation for the parking problem, and it's an avenue McCafferty hasn't ruled out.

"I would like to see change happen from somewhere. If Student Government wants to help with that, I think that's awesome, I think that's what they're there for. Hopefully, together we can make something change," she said.

Each petition on Change.org must be registered with an objective in mind, so McCafferty arbitrarily set a goal of 50 signatures. She was very pleased to see that mark surpassed, so she raised the bar to 100 signatures.

More than the signatures, McCafferty said her favorite part of the experience is reading the comments left by the supporters. She said it was reassuring to see people support her and to know that she wasn't the only student to find fault with the game day parking system.

Many of the signers were outraged to be turned away from parking lots on game days, citing their $125 parking permit as payment enough.

One of the commenters wrote, "As a commuting student, finding a place to park in the general vicinity of my classes on a normal day is abysmal at best. It is even worse during weekday athletic activities where I am told countless times I am unable to park in C lots, resulting in me being late to my class by sometimes up to a half hour."

McCafferty isn't the only one to receive complaints about parking.

Nnenne Edeh, a sophomore majoring in music and a worker at the Student Recreational Center, said she receives complaints about parking every game day.

Edeh said when the Rec Center lot is closed, students continually ask her where to go.

"I give them suggestions, saying they can go to Olde Towne [University Square], but I really don't know, so people are getting tickets and it's really not right," she said.

Edeh said before the 2011 football season, she wasn't allowed to use the Rec Center lot on game days even though she was an employee.

McCafferty would like to see the number of signatures climb even higher, and tentative plans to highlight her petition include starting a Facebook group and hanging up posters throughout campus, including the Free Speech board in the Student Union.

For now, the purpose of McCafferty's petition is to simply raise awareness about parking issues. But in the future, she hopes she can use the list of unhappy students to approach administrators such as President Lloyd Jacobs about adjusting the university parking policy.