Parking garages have become the modernized form of occupying space for your vehicle. They are an evolutionized design of today’s urbanization and populous migration. Most of the time we see them in a strip mall or business. According to http://www.polarinertia.com/nov04/parking01.htm they have become the space in between the city and the suburb.  The link also has a diagram of how the inside of a ramp parking garage looks.

“As a building type the rigid form and ingenious integration with the functions of the car, have made it one of the most modern and innovative building types in the city.”–Polar Interia

With the convenience of a parking garage it can offer so much more than surface parking. First, parking garages are built up not out, so the space that it provides while saving at the same time is a great advancement. Second, with the speed of population growth and economy in today’s society, a parking garage assists in the evolution of all these things.

The Parking Garage: Design and Evolution of a Modern Urban Form is the title of Shannon Sanders McDonald’s new book. In it she explores some of the earliest known parking garages that date back to the nineteenth century in New York, as well as parking garages of the future. She also analyzes the engineering system used to construct a parking garage.

There are different kinds of parking garages that one can build. Some of these might include a mechanized system or a ramp system. Most of the ones built today are ramp garages, but there are a few that still use a mechanized system, which is a system of elevators and turntables that move the car to its place. McDonald’s book talks about both and how each present their own advantages and disadvantages.

The parking garage can definitely offer a few good things to the community and drivers all over the world, especially college campuses.  And as all students know parking on college campuses can be somewhat of a difficult task, on top of the fees.  So the invention of the parking garage can be considered an invention of the century and centuries to come.

James Kotecki is the newest name to be apart of Politico.com.  He’s also their own personal reporter that sends the public the newest information on the presidential campaign daily through video blogs–vlogs. 

After seeing a few of his videos, which can also be seen on YouTube.com, I learned alot.  Another thing people might not realize is that all the information that we receive from Kotecki is achieved within three minutes or less.  How?  Well he talks really fast, but just enough so its at a pace where any human over 14 can probably pick up. 

Today’s news update on Kotecki TV was about John McCain and how he’s not even a natural born citizen.  According to Kotecki he was born in the Panama when his father was serving in the Navy.  But according to the Washington D.C. Senate everything is fine and McCain is still in the running to becoming the next President. 

What I do not understand is how the Senate can be the deciding factor in this.  The Constitution does say that one must be a natural born citizen in order to run for  President. Did the Senate write the Constitution or something?  Are they allowed to just make any changes when it comes to the Constitution?  Well, hopefully if I continue to tune into Kotecki TV he can help me understand the motives behind Congress. 

Since the recent pattern of receiving parking tickets, I decided that I had to park somewhere else. Some place where I don’t think the parking enforcement will take notice and decorate my car with ugly white slips.

When I called the Parking and Transportation Services at University of Nevada Las Vegas about my account, I had to know how much exactly I owed them. Then I proceeded to tell the person on the other end of the phone that parking citations were an unethical act against what this university is intended for, education, not business.

In an attempt to ease my frustrations, a parking official told me that there just so happens to be a free lot on campus. A free lot on campus is just the ticket, but where is it and how come I have never heard of it?

The free parking lot is located between the softball field and track field on the corner of Harmon and Swenson in Lot S. And yes, it is the farthest possible lot imaginable on campus. When I asked why they don’t tell students about it, they simply replied that it is on their website.

Maybe I am being cynical, but as a student, who is really going to go digging through the web to find some parking lot that practically doesn’t exist. I say practically because, after being here at UNLV for four years that lot has never existed in my mind, and after developing this blog I have talked to many students about the free lot. Many of them do not know what I am talking about.

So here you go people, a free lot. Go ahead and wander about the campus freely in efforts to find the free lot.

Everyday college students leave their homes to embark on a journey that will take them further in life. That journey may have a few twists and turns, and even some pit stops in the process. But what they do not realize is that the journey may come at a cost, and those pit stops, well, they require a parking fee.

“By pricing it at such a high cost the people that dearly need to park on campus will actually spend that much,” Atkins said.

But UNR only has 1000 less parking stalls than UNLV, and UNLV still only charges a third of what UNR does. According to Tad McDowell, UNLV Parking Director, UNLV has approximately 10,000 parking spaces for the 20,000 permits that they issue each year. While UNR has about 9,050 parking spaces for the 9,600 permits they issued last year. This means that UNLV issues about 10,000 more permits than UNR does and still has the cheapest set price.

Atkins also said that due to the construction of two new buildings the university has been forced to close a number of parking lots. Plans for major construction sites have impacted the parking greatly here at UNLV as well, but that doesn’t mean they must increase the prices.

According to UNLV’s Parking and Transportation Services Website, http://parking.unlv.edu/, some lots need to be expendable to meet the needs of the university. Some of the recent projects include: Student Recreation Center, Moyer Student Union, and the Science, Engineering, and Technology buildings.

UNLV and UNR are not the only places where this is occurring. Stanford University also faces parking issues of their own. Director of Parking Services at Stanford, Brodie Hamilton, 58, said that when they lose surface parking to construction sites they must push drivers farther and farther out.

“It’s something that just has to be done if we are going to build on to the university,” Hamilton said, “Parking is something that is near and dear to everybody because it impacts so many people. We always try to meet student’s demands, while providing needs for the university.”

Currently the standard pricing for parking permits at Stanford is $24 per month and $234 annually. According to Hamilton, Stanford has approximately 22,000 parking stalls for the 19,000 permits they issued this past year. This means that Stanford sells, on average, 3,000 less permits than there are available spaces. And according to Hamilton, there are still about 1,000 to 1,500 spaces left empty each day. So, construction might be putting a damper in a few students day to find parking, but they still seem to have plenty available.

“A big issue that we face is trying to accomodate student’s needs for parking, while attending to the number of events that we host here at Stanford,” Hamilton said, “It is a challenge.”

Hamilton also said that he wants to try to process parking structures around the roads of the university so the center of campus will not be so congested.

UNLV is also working on plans for a new parking garage that should initiate this fall. But many students believe that after already paying for tuition and the number of fees that come along, parking should just be free due to all the parking the university is taking away.

Psychology major at UNLV, Andre Groom, 23, believes that it would just be easier for the university to give free parking to students because with every parking lot they take away the university is not building anymore parking structures to make up for the loss. Groom also says that the parking authorities are getting stricter on giving citations and monitoring cars with the knowledge that there is less and and less parking each year.

Groom had his vehicle booted recently within 5 minutes after his meter ran out. He said that he put enough quarters in the meter to last him through class except for a remaining 5 minutes that it would take him to walk back to his car. Parking enforcement busted him within that remainder of time.

“It’s so ludacris when somebody will just run in real quick and enforcement will just almost tailgate them to check the meter. And they did it right when I got out of class, at least wait until the middle of class when somebody is going to stay there. If its the end of a class somebody will move. They just had no regard and did it right at the end of my class, which to me, makes no sense. I can understand if it was thirty minutes later, but it was right in the transition period. To me this seems like greed on somebody’s part,” Groom said, “If anything they should include the parking within the tuition.”

“The parking situation, due to the new construction buildings, has basically been limited and is kind of frustrating because before the new student union there was alot more student parking. So basically the reduction of parking makes it more difficult to find and there is more frustration and road rage in a parking lot,” Pees said, “If we were all living in residence halls I could understand the limitation, but since we’re mostly a commuter campus it’s a problem, plus the Thomas & Mack hold events on school days where students are parking and we have to fight over parking even more for extracurricular events than what the university is really intended for.”

However, an anonymous parking official said that paying for parking seperate from tuition is only necessary.

“It would be much harder to monitor the parking lots if we just gave away free parking. Anybody who is anybody would just come and park on campus. Students have to remember that we issue permits separately for the safety of the students. We don’t want some Joe Schmo coming to park on our campus. Plus not every permit we issue is intended for someone that is paying for tuiton. We sell visitor permits too.” –Anonymous Parking Official

Due to a number of Rebel Yell articles regarding the parking situation, Parking Officials at UNLV are not allowed to answer any questions. Leaving the previous quote anonymous was requested.

Finding parking on the UNLV campus might be somewhat of a daily struggle, and for surrounding universities as well. It’s not enough that there are not even enough available spaces for the number of permits issued, but now students are dealing with stricter parking authorities and increased pricing of permits due to construction. But according to the many parking directors quoted above they are trying to do their best to keep up with the loss. On the other side of the scale parking authorities are not keeping up, and this is something students believe officials should focus more on, rather than giving parking violators citations.

So until that journey that students embark on comes to a stop, getting there can come at a pricey cost.

Due to the cancellation of class today I had a little free time to spare. So I asked myself why the black and red lots look so much fuller than the white lot in the Thomas and Mack parking area.

From there I conducted an experiment to find out the average number of cars coming in from the Thomas & Mack entrance and which lot they parked in. I conducted five different rounds, with each round including ten vehicles coming in from Swenson. The experiment only lasted about 40 minutes, but I found on average six out of ten vehicles will park their car in the black and red lots. The other four will park their car in the white lot.

Three rounds out of the five showed a ratio of 6:4. While one round showed 8:1, and only in one round the drivers parked their cars in the white lot rather than the black and red lots, this was a 3:7 ratio.

This means that 29 out of 50 vehicles,on average, will park their car in the black and red lots rather than the white lot.  This is almost 60% of every 50 vehicles that use the Thomas & Mack entrance.

So, yes, they’re might be an over-crowdness, but according to my experiment the over-crowdness is due to decisions made by drivers to park in the most congested area. 

If there is six out of ten cars parking on one side of the lot, there will be one extra spot in the white lot for every ten cars that park in the black and red lots.   This isn’t  rocket science, just simple numbers.

In the last couple days some students and professors at UNLV might have noticed an informal looking “reserved” parking sign over the parking meters in front of FDH.

Turns out those reserved meters are not for students or any other regular campus attenders.

These particular meters are reserved for people from other companies and departments representing UNLV.  They are reserved when there is an event or conference going on that day.  Each reserved spot means that, that space has already been paid for, for that day.  These reserved participants pay in advance on an hourly rate.  At the end of the day the signs are removed from the meters.

When I contacted UNLV Parking Services they refused to answer what the hourly rate was for reserved meters. 

So next time you see one of these meters out of time, just keep walking. 

 Last month a Georgia court rejected Wal-Mart’s claim of trademark infringement after a citizen critic formed a parody website resembling the Wal-Mart trademark. 

Charles Smith of Atlanta, Georgia had a big win when the court ruled in his favor of freedom of speech.  The website, www.walocaust.com, was formed by Smith in efforts to show society how the destruction of human beings is caused by corporations.  Smith said that he wanted to come up with an expression that meant something to everybody.  He said the Holocaust was a terrible tragedy that caused a great number of deaths and destroyed lives.  So Walocaust was his idea of using this meaning behind a corporate name. 

Smith’s other websites, www.walqaeda.com & www.cafepress.com , sell a variety of novelty products with the Wal-Mart “smiley face” being clutched by an eagle.  This trademark can be found on T-shirts, bumper stickers, and other parodies. 

Georgia district court believed that Smith’s trademark and Wal-Mart’s trademark could easily be distinguished for any reasonable person not to confuse.  The court believes that Smith was only furthering his freedom of speech right and that no trademark infringement took place. 

According to www.citmedialaw.com the trademark law’s purpose is to be used against any trademark that will confuse a consumer.  However, this was not the case.  Yes, the website and parodies are a critical commentary of Wal-Mart, but they are nothing alike.  Also, each of Smith’s websites include a discalimer letting people know that the sites are not affiliated with Wal-Mart.     

After a recent run-in with the parking enforcement here at UNLV, I’ve been wondering mysef if citing college students is ethical at all.  I try not to analyze thise sort of stuff too much, but sometimes I get emotionally connected with something so dense.  As a student I will be bias, but I want to understand what the global concept of giving parking citations is.  Is it to make more money, can it be used to better the current situation, or is it just a regressive way of taxing the public? 

Giving people parking tickets is a way of enforcing the law, but according to, www.sfparkingtickets.com, parking tickets are a mere way of taking more money out of drivers pockets.  Generally the wealthy can afford a parking ticket here or there, and most fo the time they have designated parking that cannot affect the enforcement.  But to students and the working class parking tickets can be a different story, and according to this source these demographics are the hardest hit. 

The working class need vehicles in order to work, and students need vehicles in order to go to school.  So wouldn’t it just make more sense to provide more parking lots for this population of people? 

In an essence, yes it would, but then the city would see a decrease in collected parking citations.  Something that some cities just can’t afford to do.  So, again, it’s another way of building up more profit. 

Earlier in the semester I spoke with the Direcor of UNLV Parking Services, Tad McDowell, and he says that most money collected from parking citations goes to the maintenace and construction of parking lots.  This response only reinforces the idea that it’s a way to make money while taxing people in an informal way.  But what about the ethical decisions made by people who choose not obtain a permit or pay for parking? 

According to Tim Harford of www.slate.com  the ethics of parking is within one’s own personal morals or values.  Some might value a parking space, but morally they believe that the space should be free.  But Harford also addressed that the incentives behind giving parking citations matter more than personal morals.  If they really value a parking spot, they should pay for it.

Personally, the population that make up students and the working class are the people who make up the economy.  These are the people who make up more than half of America. These are the people who decide the future of economical America. These are the people who should have dedicated parking.  Just give them free parking.

The daily trip to the grocery store has many people rethinking that trip that was once upon a time not something one had to worry about.  With the increasing rates of living standards, food prices have increased as well.  Also, people who receive food stamps are limited to what they can buy, so with food prices increasing they too must rethink what they will buy as well as making it last.  So I was able to do a little research with the help of the Alberston’s grocery store website, and found how one might budget themselves if they were on food stamps. 

In class we came to the conclusion that, on average, someone on food stamps has up to $22.75 that they can spend a week on food.  As a young grocery shopper I try to make good habits of making healthier choices, but it is also more expensive to eat healthy.  So I tried to find a few things that could last a week on $22.75, at the same time trying to make it somewhat of a healthy diet.  I found under an Albertson’s brand name you can buy Chicken Max Paks for only $4.95.  The Max Paks include your choice of thighs, drumsticks, or breasts; all of which range from four to five pounds.  Also under an Alberston’s brand name you can buy a pre-packaged garden blend of fresh vegetables for $3.99.  This package includes 18 oz. of vegetables.  Under the Heartland brand you can buy 12 oz. of organic spaghetti pasta for only $2.99.  Also including carbohydrates, you can buy 14 oz of Oroweat Bread (7 Grain) for $3.09.  Albertson’s Natural Oats & Honey cereal is $3.49 for 16 oz.  Along with cereal, a half gallon of Albertson’s Fat Free milk is $2.59.  After purchasing all of these products you would still have $1.65 left over, which could probably be used towards some kind of snack or juice. 

These products may seem like alot for only $22.75, but we still must keep in mind that it needs to last at least a week.  So being able to proportionize your meals is very important, as well as eating in moderation.  People on food stamps could very well go to the common fast food restaurant each day to keep their budget under control, but it’s just not a healthy way of eating or living.  So just by doing a little research we can still find a few good buys. 

In an interesting blog I found one upset student from the University of Nevada Reno wrote  about how UNLV sucks…at everything.  Even parking.  Apparently this guy, whose blog title is kinggame, goes to UNR while blogging for Fox Sports.  And I guess he felt it necessary to trash talk his rival school, UNLV.   In one statement he asks why  UNLV students put their diplomas in their windshield, he answers, so they can park in handicapped spots.  Does he mean that UNLV diplomas qualify as a permit to park in disability spots only?  Well, if he does, he is clearly wrong and obviously he doesn’t know what its like to find parking here.  He also makes jocular comments about the football team and how if there were ever a tornado the city would have to go to Sam Boyd stadium because we never get a touchdown there.  This stuff is just like something a UNR student might say, but because he is blogging for Fox Sports he is clearly using the most of his spotlight.  Obviously making the NCAA tournament two years in a row is more than we can say about his school, but just not enough to make kinggame keep his comments to himself.  If anyone would like to check out what else he has to say about UNLV here is a link that tells a little more about what is really on his mind.  http://community.foxsports.com/blogs/kinggame/UNLV/71223