Parking headaches have become one of the most common complaints around campus the last few years.Every student at LSU has a laundry list of traffic or parking-related horror stories.Unfortunately, the people most affected by the inefficiencies of our parking system are the students who can’t afford the spiraling costs of on-campus housing.Because of these exorbitant costs, students with pre-existing financial constraints depend daily on the University’s parking infrastructure.But these costs have continued to soar while on-campus parking access has drastically declined. The problems caused by University action have only been exacerbated by various expansion projects and University regulations, such as “Easy Streets,” which protect faculty parking at the expense of the average student.Today, commuter lots, which were originally designed to accommodate a relatively small overflow of students, are now being forced to accommodate thousands of students daily.And thanks to the massive influx of commuter parkers, the parking calamity has snowballed on and around campus. The insane traffic has caused resources to be reallocated toward addressing the mere symptoms of University parking rather than addressing the underlying disease of limited parking availability and the inordinate costs of on-campus living.Many students today are demanding the University provide universal access to on-campus parking by eliminating the highly controversial “Easy Streets” program.This sort of plan might sound appealing in theory. Especially to students who like the idea of granting all students access to the same quality parking faculty members receive.But, in practice, we should see such a plan would actually achieve the direct opposite of its stated intent — namely because it fails to deal with the underlying problems.The truth is we won’t actually “fix” anything until we first address the root problems and start devising more innovative ways to increase parking availability and promote viable alternatives to driving.As with any debate, we must understand what the real problems are before we can come up with real, rational solutions.Virtually everyone agrees — at a university as privileged as ours — every student should be able to attain quality access to campus.That’s why we need to start thinking of practical alternatives to the status quo. What we don’t need to do is appeal to the same institutions that exacerbated the problems and blindly hope everything will magically fix itself.Besides, our current on-campus parking infrastructure can hardly sustain its present burden — especially with the drastic budget constraints they’re currently dealing with. Throwing thousands more students into an already fragile system without a plan for real change will only create more chaos and headaches.There are plenty of pragmatic ways we can increase parking capacity and promote various alternatives once we think outside the box.But first we need to reject the myth that simply providing universal access to on-campus parking will somehow solve everything.We’ve seen objective evidence showing how the University has actually prevented parking alternatives from arising by limiting — or monopolizing — the campus region through “Easy Streets” and by reducing the amount of commuter lots on and near campus.But to really succeed, the University needs to abandon its asphyxiating policies and allow entirely new alternatives to arise.As logic suggests, there’s nothing really magical about “access” to on-campus parking because our existing infrastructure is highly inefficient and entirely unsustainable.If we really want everyone to have quality access to campus, we need to stop looking to the University for an easy street fix and start working toward real, practical alternatives. Ultimately, our objective shouldn’t merely be to provide universal access, but to encourage better efficiency and optimal results so everybody benefits.But what do I know? I’m just a college student who likes using metaphors.Scott Burns is a 20-year-old business and history junior from Baton Rouge. Follow him on Twitter@TDR_sburns.—-Contact Scott Burns at [email protected]