It’s testament to both the Manitoban’s perversion of the word “culture” and the state of this sad city’s public life and dependence on cars that a recent U of M parking debacle has earned an entire page of coverage here. But our two writers have suffered admirably, trudging through the mires of university bureaucracy to demonstrate through their hilarious frustration that whatever isn’t wrong with Winnipeg, parking is. Get a bus pass.
Parking palpitations
Will that be cash, cheque, Visa or blood?
ARI HANSON
Who knew that a little piece of pavement to call one’s own out in the concrete jungle otherwise known as the U of M’s Fort Garry campus could cause so much trouble for so many people? One of the biggest drawbacks of driving to school here has always been the parking situation. Parking passes in lots within frost-bite-free walking distance of the buildings in which most people take classes are both tougher to come by and pricier than most hard drugs—and they’re definitely more addictive.
No, there’s nothing worse than a parking junkie without his or her annual fix. This probably didn’t get factored into the plan when the powers that be decided that 2007 would be the year that the age-old (well, decades-old) tradition of phoning in to the parking office on one crazy morning in June to claim parking passes got thrown out in favor of a much more streamlined process using — you guessed it — the Internet. You’d think an online parking registration system, much like most other things online, couldn’t possibly be any slower than its analog counterpart. After two years at this school, however, we’ve been taught to expect that when there’s a will, U of M can find the way.
Maybe there was some minute flaw in the system so small even a state-of-the-art diagnostic system couldn’t have found it. Or maybe, just maybe, it was the students themselves. All technical details of the new online system aside, the parking office probably should have taken into account the fact that come the afternoon of July 19, thousands of temporarily insane parkers would be thrashing their computers’ mice about like madmen, clicking endlessly again and again trying to log into JUMP/Aurora and be on their way to asphalt freedom.
No, U of M Parking Office, when we need the good stuff and know it’s in very limited supply, we will not act like the upstanding (erm, well . . . standing up, at least) citizens you’ve come to expect. Instead, we will flail around like caught fish with no air (water?) to breathe and sucking mouth wounds. It seems that this “opening of the floodgates” principle caused JUMP to crash on that fateful Thursday, and with it went the immediate plans and schedules of the thousands of students trying to get parking.
We all sat glued to our computer screens in nervous anticipation. Conference calls among friends were common, but like political news in a fascist state, no one knew more than anybody else. A sense of craziness prevailed, but as the wait grew longer, people got wearier. Finally, the parking office announced a temporary cease-fire; registration had been cancelled for the day, and it would resume on Friday, July 20 at 9:30 a.m.. The next morning they added insult to injury, making parking “unavailable until further notice.” This was the straw that turned most parkers from mildly deranged into babbling psychotics. Across the city from U of M in a quiet suburban neighborhood, we actually witnessed a pair of ravaged U of M parkers howling at the moon over their lack of parking passes, wandering aimlessly in the middle of the street. (Alright, alright; it was only 10 o’clock, they were talking about parking fairly calmly, the street gets maybe five cars an hour tops, and the howls more than likely came from the dog they were walking at the time — but nevertheless.)
A couple of days later, the parking office launched its next offensive in the battle for lot registration — an announcement was released saying that the online system would be opening on Wednesday, July 24. At first glance, all seemed well as 9:30 a.m. rolled around. That is, until a realization began to set in, more terrible than that of a meat-eater at an all-vegan barbecue. While our applications did go through, we got no confirmation whatsoever; instead, a simple “We will notify you by August 3” message appeared for anyone who completed an online parking request. Well, if hospitals experienced unusually high levels of coronaries in the 18-25 age group for the next couple weeks, I guess we know why.
So, not only was online parking a much bigger hassle than the already annoying phone-in system, but it left lot choice basically up to the powers that be anyway. With no paper trail or instant confirmation on sign-up day, they’ve essentially covered their asses even if some of the students end up with passes somewhere north of Siberia. But if I know my university students, I think it’s safe to say that the establishment hasn’t heard the last of the U of M parkers; and they can probably look forward to hearing it every day over the phone, through e-mail, and even from the tiny window in University Centre that acts as their lone connection to the outside world. I hope they used the money they saved on the sub-par online registration system to give parking office employees a huge raise, or at least some high-powered handguns — they’ll sure need them. Poor, poor, pitiful parking office, why didn’t you take heed to last year’s Aurora fiasco? To dust off an old chestnut — if it ain’t broke, don’t fix it.
