Parking improvements can offer huge benefits

It is the middle of winter. A balmy 12°F. You take the first painful step out of your warm, cozy car. It is Monday morning, and you are already tired. You look ahead of you and see nothing but a long, cold walk ahead of you. You have just parked in Flynntown and need to make the hike toward Quad 3.

This is certainly not a new experience for Bennies parking on St. John’s campus. Each year, CSB students face the struggle of parking on the campus of our so-called “one school.”

The only parking option available to Bennies before 4:00 p.m. on the SJU campus is Flynntown. Flynntown is the farthest point on lower campus, while classroom buildings like PENGL or the Quad are some of the farthest points on upper campus. This is not only inconvenient but unfair and dangerous.

It goes without saying that the parking situation for Bennies on St. John’s campus is inconvenient. The walk from Flynntown is a solid eight to nine minutes. Trust us: We’ve clocked it. And we’re fast walkers.

After finding a parking spot, grabbing your backpack and coffee (at least in our case), that’s an extra 10 to 15 minutes you need to factor into your morning routine. That’s time you could spend getting a couple extra Z’s, replying to those emails that seem to have appeared overnight or being able to say good morning to your roommates.

Additionally, the actual hike from Flynntown isn’t a walk in the park (pun intended). By the time we’ve trod uphill from Flynn and climbed three flights of stair to Quad 3, we sit down in our chairs sweating. It’s not a pretty sight.

So, the lack of parking for Bennies at SJU is obviously inconvenient, but what maybe isn’t as obvious is the disparities between Johnnies’ parking situation at CSB and the Bennies situation at SJU.

The farthest point for Johnnies to walk to class on St. Ben’s campus is from Dirt Lot. Now, even if you have class in the Main, which is the farthest away classroom from Dirt Lot, you are still only facing about a five-minute walk. A walk which is completely level the entire time. No uphill battle here, folks.

Most importantly though, Bennies having to park in Flynntown is dangerous. Depending on how long you are on campus if you park your car in Flynn early in the morning, the trek back to your car might not feel so safe later that night. The path itself does not feel welcoming and we believe that having a greater Life Safety presence in that area, especially when it gets dark, would be a great step in making people feel safe.

Especially on the weekends, the more that we can do to change the bystander culture the more we can cultivate a more welcoming environment where everyone feels safe.

We would argue that a first great step would be establishing a level of trust with one another. How? That is up to all of us to decide. But if adding parking is not feasible, we should all work toward creating the community we all rave so much about.