The Big Squeeze

University Hall has declared an open season on students who own cars. Calling it an attempt to solve the parking problem and force the Harvard man to live up to his responsibilities as a citizen of Cambridge, the Administration has promised--and no doubt will--fine, fine, and fine again those students whose cars are parked overnight on Cambridge streets.

There is little enough parking space without the University helping matters by making night-time parking in the streets impossible. They shrug off all suggestions of alternate side parking by noting that it is illegal and that we must be good citizens and uphold the law. They ignore the fact that Cambridge residents are rarely fined for overnight parking and add insult to injury by levying fines which are almost three times as high as Cambridge's. The Administration explains that the higher rates and stricter enforcement are necessary because Cambridge fines are too low and too rarely enforced. Just why the University does not urge Cambridge to enforce its own laws is not explained. Nor do they explain why the Harvard student must be a better citizen of Cambridge than the actual residents are. It seems obvious that the University's parking policy is not so much concerned with citizenship and solving a problem as it is with appeasing the outspoken critics of Harvard among Cambridge's politicians. Punishing students is a poor substitute for public relations, parking lots, and alternate side parking. The city's own Planning Commission said that the obvious solution to the problem is alternate side parking--a suggestion ignored by both Cambridge and the College.

The only vaguely workable scheme the Administration has enacted this year is forcing students to have their autos in a private or University lot by November 19. If these lots were less expensive (private parking costs $50, the University's $30) and were nearer than the Business or Divinity Schools the plan might have been worthwhile. But as is, the Administration's policy is merely short-sighted, faint-hearted, and unfair.