We have issues in inefficiency on our campus
Causing inconvenience and safety issues to students

Much like most large cities, Atlanta’s parking is scarce, occupied by large numbers of daily commuters, current residents, and university students and faculty. The placement of a large university in the geographic center of a densely populated city presents obvious problems with parking and transportation. This problem is easily seen at Georgia Tech. Freshmen are not allowed to park cars on campus in an attempt to alleviate congestion. This, however, hardly seems to have an impact. Large amounts of daily student commuters clog traffic within the university’s boundaries as do students currently living on campus. 

According to the Georgia Tech Police Department, the following crimes have occurred since January 2007:

• 1,805 cases of larceny
• 286 cases of burglary
• 157 cases of motor vehicle theft
• 26 cases of robbery
• 14 cases of aggravated assault
• 6 cases of rape

This list does not include all of the cases that go unreported. Most crime occurs after dusk, and the game day policies in place is a safety threat to students with certain parking permits. Permit buyers in certain lots, such as Peter’s and O’Keefe parking lots, must move their cars to distant parking lots for all football games and most basketball games before 5:00pm the night before a game and have their cars returned to their permit lot by 8:00am the next morning. For example, this requires many students walking to and from their permit lot on east campus to a parking lot on west campus at 6:00am in order to not be ticketed at 8:00am. This policy is unreasonable and safe. We propose that current police officers foot patrol those specific areas during the assigned times to increase safety for Georgia Tech student permit buyers.

We can do something about this

We have confronted this problem with short-term and long-term solutions. There are many unfair policies, from the unreasonable parking permit price to the inconvenience of game day parking for permit buyers. In order for the Georgia Tech Parking and Transportation Department to become “the most student friendly operation in higher education,” they should treat students with fairness through a parking system that offers more reasonable rates and more access to unused parking lots after 5:00pm. Byproducts of this would be less congestion for the entire Georgia Tech community and more visibility for police patrolling the streets for the safety of the students. The ideas presented in this proposal should be taken into consideration for the well-being, fair treatment and safety of the Georgia Tech student body.