Time for my yearly “What’d they do to the parking this time?” update from the first day at KSU.

The first thing I have to address isn’t the parking, but the road that leads to the University. Since the start of school last year, they’ve been doing work on Chastain road. Last year, this led to one “lane shift” in the mile long stretch from the interstate to the school grounds. They’re still working on Chastain, but there are now no less than THREE lane shifts, and the one from last year now shifts THE OTHER WAY. It’s like they created their very own switchback!

As for parking, I give them a D overall and a B for effort. When you first approach, it doesn’t look nearly as bad as last year. Where all of our old parking used to be, where the mound of dirt famously was last year, there is now a dorm that’s almost finished!

And then you see it. Two more parking lots, gone, as well as the ends of everything in G lot. A few new spaces were created in the re-arrangement of G lot, but what replaced the two remaining H lots?

A lawn!

They replaced parking with grass , at a university famous for people parking ON grass because there’s no damn parking!

Not only that, but they created a new, prettier sidewalk (…again) in the left half of old C lot, which was the “good” parking lot. This wiped out the motorcycle and car pool spaces. What’s a good university to do? Move them over! And give the rest to staff! Oh, and all the handicapped spaces were blocked when we wiped out the other half of C lot last year, so let’s paint whatever we’re not using for staff, blue! What do you get in the end? The formerly always-packed lot, is now the emptiest lot on campus. Maybe ten cars in it.

I ended up parking in the vertical lot. It’s still there, luckily, and not exactly further than I parked last year. The only problem is that it’s at a 70 degree angle to the rest of the world. You have to be careful how you park there. Last year, I watched a poor Jetta flip right over and fall off the parking lot after they made the mistake of putting their bookbag in the back seat. You learn.