Parking Plots

It is hard to tell how much the recent parking campaign has augmented the University's coffers, but it is almost certain that there must be some more constructive use of policemen's time and students' cash than playing automotive musical chairs. Students have already paid more fines in a month than they contribute to the Combined Charities in a year, and there is no relief in sight.

The solutions to this problem are several, if anyone cares to seek them. It is obvious that the University could allow students to join the other residents of Cambridge on equal terms, parking on one side of the street. But since the University was conceived in a Puritanical tradition which viewed pleasure as sinful and convenience as decadent, such a simple solution is evidently impractical. In any case, it is obviously much more effective to promote town-gown relations by joining the town than by seeking rational solutions to non-existent problems.

But if the University is intent upon its search for lebensraum it might devote the warm summer evenings to pondering the possibility of building parking lots. Such a solution to the parking problem might well be expensive, but it would at least reduce the issue to its financial form.

In the meanwhile, the Administration might meditate upon the fact that while students are walking the mile from the Business School lot to the Yard, the streets of Cambridge remain uncleaned despite their looming emptiness. Perhaps the real solution to the parking problem is to put a broomstick on every undergraduate bumper and allow parking everywhere.