Finding parking at the university can be difficult, especially in high volume areas. As if the time necessary to walk to class wasn’t enough, students must be prepared to spend an inordinate amount of time looking for a spot.
Parking at the University Recreation Center can be a particularly arduous task in the late afternoon and evening hours. 
I enjoyed my visits to the UREC during the winter break. It was empty enough that I didn’t have to wait for machines or equipment, but there were still enough people there to play basketball with. 
I’d become naïve to the issue of parking for that month, but it quickly returned to the forefront of my mind the first day of spring semester, as the sight of a full parking lot and the burden of driving around to find a spot proved to be migraine inducing. 
Parking spots are also hard to find in many other places on campus, especially by The 459 Commons, the East Campus Apartments and the dorms on the East side of campus. Some students in the east campus dorms have to park at the UREC at night because there are no spots left in the residential lots.
Parking spots on campus are far too hard to come by, but perhaps an even larger problem is the dilapidated state of some lots. Even when students can find a spot, they must prepare themselves for a rollercoaster ride over potholes.
This issue is most evident at West Campus Apartments. The entrance closest to West Chimes Street and Alaska Street is a tough area to drive through, to say the least. The number of craterous holes there would make a nuclear test site blush. 
Drivers must be careful to proceed slowly over the surface of this entrance. Legend says that driving over 5 mph in this area can cause a concussion rivaling only that of a wide receiver in the 1970’s (although we can’t know for sure, as no one has been brave enough to test it).
“I don’t understand how they can build a new dorm every year but we have potholes bigger than my first apartment,” digital art senior Devin Riser said.
This criticism rings true for LSU students who see more dorms being built as the conditions of the parking lots degrade. The university spending tuition dollars on seemingly everything but parking is an increasingly frustrating reality. Adding new dorms exacerbates the parking issue by squeezing even more people onto a campus with limited parked spaces.
Parking is an issue that students care about, but the university doesn’t seem to share that sentiment. The concerns of administrators should be aligned with those of the students. In order to alleviate this chronic, daily problem for students, the university should prioritize improving both the quality and quantity of parking on campus.
Frank Kidd is a 21-year-old mass communication junior from Springfield.