To the Editor:
Thank you for your insightful article on the parking fee increase (the Student Senate is protecting whose interests . . . their own?) and your strong editorial condemning the increase. Subsidizing parking by assessing fees on all student credit hours penalizes those students who believe it is better to reduce pollution by getting to campus another way.
And, if parking costs become part of each student’s bill, thrifty students will no longer have any incentive to forego driving for a cheaper alternative. I think the administration would be shocked by the parking demand if each USM student felt they had paid for convenient parking, and I believe no affordable garage would meet that need.
If a campus expansion requires a parking garage, it is far better to pay for it through a capital expenditures budget raised through whatever generic funding the University can obtain, rather than a short-sighted fee increase that will increase congestion on the Portland campus.
Once built, the fees generated by people parking in the garage would, appropriately, serve to replenish what was drained out of USM’s budget by the construction.
John G. Bean
Maine Law ’03