Dear Parking Services,

Just last week, I went out to get in my car after lunch in the Greek Village to go to work, and you will never guess what I found! On my windshield was a bright yellow envelope containing a $25 fine for not having one of those parking passes that cost a couple hundred dollars to be able to park in Greek Village. 

I won’t lie. I sat there in my car for a little bit just staring at it, hoping it would go away or just casually get picked up by the wind because, you know, you really shouldn’t have, Parking Services. 

If you ask any student at USC what is the worst thing about this University, I would guess nine times out of ten it would be parking. Whether it is the outrageous price to purchase a parking spot, the constant ticketing, or the lack of parking for a school of our size, almost everyone has an opinion on this issue. 

For the sake of this letter, I’m going to base my opinion on what I have experienced with parking in Greek Village. This is my second year living in the Alpha Chi Omega house, and after spending hundreds of dollars on a parking sticker last year, I decided to pass on it this year. My reasoning was that, last year, I would come home multiple times throughout the year and have no spot to park in, even though I had purchased one of these ridiculous stickers. I soon realized I was paying hundreds of dollars for nothing except being bypassed by you, Parking Services, whenever you ticketed. This year, I chose to not get a pass and do my best to park in the parallel spots or just take the tickets. 

Calculated out, I would have to get about nine tickets this semester to equal out how much it would cost me to just buy a parking spot from you, so I have chosen to take my chances. Also, I have found myself driving around for upwards of 20 minutes, around meal times, praying for a parking spot. After 20 minutes, do you think I’m seriously going to bypass a parking spot in fear of getting a ticket? We Greek students are required to eat at our houses, and even with carpooling, we have nowhere close to enough parking.  

I understand this is an issue with the University, but I think we can all agree -- getting rid of half of the coliseum parking was not moving in a progressive manner to fix this problem. If we are going to continue to accept this many students to a university that is so spread out, then we need to be more focused about problematic issues, rather than turning a blind eye and causing more havoc on the students and more money coming out of our pockets. 

Parking Services, I understand it is not all your fault, and that there are multiple other departments involved in these issues, but how is it fair to the students to be punished for something we have no control over? My advice is to work less on the future advancements and focus on the problems that we are facing with our university right now.

Thanks, and I’ll see you in the next few days when I come to pay my ticket.

Yours truly, 

Angry Jetta owner