One of the perks of being a sophomore, aside from living in Pratt and laughing at those freshmen who, incidentally, have better housing than you, is finally being allowed to have a car at school. How nice is it, on a cold winter Sunday night, to get into a toasty warm car, blast some music and cruise around Alumni lot looking for a spot? Naturally, you won't find one, but we're all optimists at heart. So, annoyed, you try O'Connell-no luck. Well, Hills it is. Only once you get to that limbo-like area somewhere in between Amherst and what we like to term "the rest of the world," you find that there are no spots there either. In fact, all the lots are full and the only choice you have is to park on campus, where you will undoubtedly get a ticket or the boot. So what are we to do? Drive around until a space opens up? Or park in town, which is prohibited on pain of death and dismemberment?

But parking problems are not limited to sophomores. Amherst's policy of giving out more parking permits than there are available spaces will affect everyone on campus with a car, especially in the winter season when the police are less understanding of the popular "create a space" policy. With many of the available spaces in Mayo-Smith and Newport changed to faculty-only and the increasing number of students with cars, something about the situation has to give. Aside from personal inconvenience, which can be dealt with, the school is creating, even if inadvertently, a very real safety concern.

The short-term solutions, like deprioritizing ticketing during the major parking crunches, can only go so far. And the time has passed for solutions such as limiting the number of people who can have cars on campus, at least for this year. This sort of problem causes headaches for all involved, from the student body to the faculty and, most of all, the campus police, who will be dealing with this on a daily basis.

If we acknowledge the inherent contradiction of a policy that sells parking stickers but does not guarantee spaces, we still haven't gotten anywhere close to solving the real issue. Additional parking, enough to cover any future increase in our ownership, is the only feasible alternative. O'Connell and Hills lots, close enough to campus to address safety concerns but not too close to create an eyesore, seem like the best place to add an above or underground facility. In the interim, however, the parking situation needs to be addressed, perhaps by building provisional lots like the one in front of Jenkins. As much leg room as new cars have, no one looks forward to spending the night in one, driving around looking for that one elusive space.