FAULTY ECONOMICS

Seven lone, snow-covered, cars testify to Lehman Hall's lack of wisdom and faulty economics in attempting to compete with other garages and parking spaces around the Square in supplying a haven for undergraduate autos. The principal reason for the economic failure of the parking space is the high rates which the Business Manager has instituted.

The monthly rate of six dollars for night and day parking exceeds the rates of other parking lots equally near the Houses, or the Yard, by three dollars in some cases, a dollar or two in others. It is only two dollars less than the monthly garage rates of the two garages which have the preponderance of undergraduate trade. Delivery service is also included in these garage rates.

Mr. Durant has explained the present rate as being calculated only to pay the wages of two "superannuated" watchmen, who, he says, would otherwise be used in the Houses. The support of these men, however, would not require the relatively high rate that the University charges.

While the University parking lot is centrally located, fenced in, and supplied with watchmen, only a substantial reduction in the monthly rate will make it financially worthwhile to students. Despite Mr. Durant's opinion to the contrary, students do not consider their ownership of automobiles so much of a luxury that they can afford to pay the fifty per cent more a month for the privilege of keeping their cars on the University lot. For other students, to whom the rate is unimportant, the space has no use.

Although the use of this lot for parking was suggested by undergraduates, it was not supposed that a prohibitive rate would be levied. The University must charge something to defray the cost of maintenance but a lot completely used, at a low rate, would be financially better for Lehman Hall than a lot only sparsely filled at a high rate. A fifty per cent reduction of the present rate is the only way to make this lot advantageous to both the University and the students. The increased patronage would adequately cover the difference between the income the lot now yields and what it would yield then.