Parking article hits nail on head

Kenny Sharpe's article “Memorial stops idling on issue of campus parking,” the Muse , November 26, 2009, underscores the lack of integrated regional planning on the north-east Avalon.

The “lack of parking spaces” at Memorial University has been an ongoing complaint since the campus moved to its present site 48 years ago.

As other university campuses have discovered - creating more parking spaces never solves parking problems — it only stimulates more automobile use and with it more traffic congestion. It is an endless no-win cycle.

Unfortunately the current public transit system functioning in St. John's is essentially limited to the city's boundaries.

The other 50 or more per cent of the northeast Avalon’s population residing outside those boundaries have little choice but to use cars to travel to campus.

What is needed to stem the ever-increasing commuter use of automobiles (which has more than tripled in the past 30 years) is an integrated regional public transit system — offering both express and local service to all communities in the North-east Avalon region.

While this will not solve all the traffic congestion around the campus, it will provide a practical, year-round, affordable public transportation option for all post secondary students and the general public in this region.

And, by the way, it will help us in our efforts to reduce our greenhouse gas emissions - which have major effects not only on our atmosphere but also on our marine environment.

To further this initiative, we are interested in working with MUNSU, the university administration, and any other student or university organizations to lobby provincial and municipal governments to make this a reality.

Fred Turner, Sierra Club Canada

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