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It’s hardly news to anyone that many students on the University of Louisville’s Belknap Campus think parking is a problem. And university officials don’t deny that the issue exists. Lots of cars and few places to put them is a reality, they say, at a landlocked metropolitan university.

But with student parking seemingly already a scarcity, especially for students living on campus who stalk spaces in the Miller Hall lot like wild predators, it didn’t help make things better when the university eliminated about 60 green spaces on the south side of Eastern Parkway this semester. The spaces were converted to blue staff parking.

Similarly, yellow spaces in the lot near Kurz Hall were changed to blue earlier this year. Other yellow spaces were eliminated altogether when construction began on the new Community Park residence facility.

Two years ago, an entire parking lot was eliminated as part of the construction of the Belknap Research building that opened in 2005.

With parking spaces going the way of the Dodo, what are students to do?

Thankfully, the Student Government Association has been working recently to brainstorm solutions to the problem. A resolution recommended this semester by the SGA Executive Cabinet takes a commendable stab at improving the parking dilemma on campus by suggesting several policy changes that would largely improve student, faculty and staff parking.

Most importantly, the resolution limits some parking pass holders to park only in spaces that coordinate with the pass they have. For example, instead of red pass holders being able to park in blue or green spaces, they would be allowed to park only in red spaces. This would obviously prevent faculty and staff members with blue passes from being displaced into green spaces when staff parking is filled. In fact, the resolution would prohibit blue permit holders from parking in green spaces at all.

The resolution also calls for a “significant portion of all red spaces [to] be converted to non-reserved parking and sold on a per-lot basis.” This would benefit students by allowing them to park closer to the center of campus instead of in purple parking on the perimeter of campus. It would also mean that red spots that often remain unoccupied simply because professors and other staff members are only on campus during certain hours of the day could be used by other permit holders.

Where the resolution falls short, though, is in identifying a clear solution to parking that helps students who live on campus as well as students who commute.

Taking the lead of other major universities where resident freshman have no more parking advantage than commuter freshmen is one viable option. If freshmen who lived on campus were only allowed to buy purple passes for parking at Papa John’s Cardinal Stadium, a significant number of resident spaces would be opened for campus-dwelling upperclassmen who now take over green spaces when yellow lots are full. After all, three residence halls on campus – Miller, Unitas and Center – are typically filled only with freshmen.

Of course freshmen will complain, but as their turn on the top of the totem pole rolls around, they’ll appreciate the system that makes it easier for them to park near where they live. Commuter students who spend money to buy green passes will not have to jockey with resident students in the parking garage where yellow and green lots overlap.

Until something is done, students and staff can help alleviate the problem by parking where they’re supposed to, not wherever they can. If you have a yellow permit, take an available yellow space instead of a green space.

If you have a red permit, park in your red space. No one else can park there, not even other red permit holders, so please take advantage of the luxury others don’t have. Leave blue and green spaces for people who have coordinating permits.

Perhaps if we all stick to parking where we should for a while, officials at the parking office can better estimate the true parking needs of the campus. Right now, with what seems to be the free-for-all we have, too little is being done by the consumer (the parker) or administration to help the problem.

For more information about the resolution, visit the SGA Web site at http://sga.louisville.edu.

More information about parking regulations and lot designations is available from the parking office Web site at http://www.louisville.edu/admin/dps/parking.