Without Objection
Judy McGovern is unhappy that the university has merely said that they have “no objection” to residential parking districts that “improve [neighborhood] aesthetics” like the new NoBuPa one. Community relations director Jim Kosteva said that they help in getting students to consider other parking options, but that’s not good enough; McGovern wants a whole-hearted endorsement, something like “Dear non-student residents of Ann Arbor, we applaud your efforts to get the unsightly cars of our students and employees off your lovely streets, and remain grateful that you allow us to exist.”
Judy McGovern is an idiot.
posted by gradgrudge on October 30th, 2005 at 6:00 pmNoBuPa? Holy cats, please tell me no one is using that for real. I can see the Sunday real estate ads already: “Lovely 700sq ft home with driveway and street parking for residents in NoBuPa. $293,900.”
posted by Thomas Cook on October 30th, 2005 at 10:46 pmI understand that they think a greater number of cars would make something ugly (yet their 2 cars in their household are obviously invisible and smell like roses). However, after driving past the dorms and fraternity houses I’ve concluded that many of the students drive far nicer cars than I ever will as a non-student resident. So, I hope they aren’t trying to make the assumption that “student” cars are all rusty 1991 Civics …because that’s me!
posted by beth on October 30th, 2005 at 11:02 pmI think Judy wants a town where the residents are unencumbered by the inconveniences of the largest single institutional employer while reaping all the secondary benefits of having such a place close by. Maybe a place where all employees have designated parking on campus and all attendees stay on site for all their daytime activities and are all housed on site in dormitories, without their own vehicles. This is not just an idle dream, Judy. This place already exists, and it’s not that far from Ann Arbor down US-23. Move to Milan.
posted by JCP2 on October 31st, 2005 at 10:40 amMaybe it would work if there was public transportation out of Ann Arbor after 9 pm, but that’s just a pipe dream.
posted by Pants Rule on October 31st, 2005 at 12:11 pmAgreed on the public transit. If you could get around Michigan easier (must… not… think…about… subway system… at home…), there would probably be far fewer students with cars.
posted by Boston Fan in Michigan on November 1st, 2005 at 12:52 amMilan’s main institution is a state correctional facility.
posted by JCP2 on November 1st, 2005 at 8:49 amIt’s a federal correctional facility.
posted by HNG on November 1st, 2005 at 10:39 amYou are right. I stand corrected.
posted by JCP2 on November 1st, 2005 at 11:10 amOh it is going to be a nightmare, though, and all for what? Beth is right, they aren’t in dumpy cars they are in Esplanades and Explorers and junk their parents promised to buy them if they came here instead of going to a private school out of state. They will take all the parking spaces and speed drunk and never ever ever drive without a cellphone to their ear even though they are only driving a quarter mile to take another goddam parking space because they don’t have anywhere to go that is not easily accessible on foot or shuttle or free little purple bus because–dare I say it?–STUDENTS DON’T NEED CARS.
posted by Buzz on November 1st, 2005 at 12:35 pmBuzz off.
posted by Dale on November 1st, 2005 at 1:19 pmWhat if I want to go into Detroit to see a baseball game? Can I easily get there without a car? Not really. What if I’m an art student and I need to go to an art supply store and pick up giant canvas frames on a regular basis? Can I do that easily on foot or on a bus?
The irony, of course, is that I don’t have a car, despite the fact that I could probably desperately use one.
posted by Boston Fan in Michigan on November 1st, 2005 at 1:52 pmOK, for those of you screaming about students not ‘needing’ cars.
They don’t need to use them AS OFTEN AS THEY DO.
Boston Fan made a good point. Sometimes, you need a car. Welcome to modern society. To get around town though? Not so much.
I go to MSU (and no, I never even THOUGHT about applying to UM) and we’re the biggest single-site campus in the nation. I get around on foot just fine. Up through town, no problem. But what if I want to go up to the new outdoor mall at Lake Lansing, about 4 miles north of the northern boundry of campus? What do I do then? Sure, I could take a bus up there and get CLOSE, and then have to be back home by 7 (when buses stop running) and I’d have to be mindful not to buy a lot of things.
Point of all this… students need cars. They just don’t need them as often as they think.
posted by Big John on November 1st, 2005 at 3:16 pmBig John. Car OWNERSHIP, you realize, is more or less a binary — however rarely or frequently you need it, you either own a car or you don’t. If you do, you need parking.
Problematizing this binary, I suggest everyone join the Ann Arbor Community Car Cooperative, Ann Arbor’s car sharing service.
posted by Dale on November 1st, 2005 at 3:22 pm“They will take all the parking spaces and speed drunk and never ever ever drive without a cellphone to their ear even though they are only driving a quarter mile to take another goddam parking space because they don’t have anywhere to go that is not easily accessible on foot or shuttle or free little purple bus because–dare I say it?–STUDENTS DON’T NEED CARS. ”
Yup, townies also aren’t squawking on their cell phone during rush hour or trying to squeeze their SUV into a parking space on the street. Never happens. Especially on S. State out by the airport and I-94 during my morning commute. Nope, not once.
As an aside, who the fuck are you talking to at 7:45 AM?
And of course students don’t need cars. I mean, all essential services are located near all the student housing, both on and off campus, in this town, like groceries, pharmacies and the like. Oh wait, Meijer’s isn’t located near campus? Guess I’d better check my map.
I used to park north of the student ghetto in the full-time resident part of East Lansing between Grand River and Burcham all the time for class, and I don’t recall the denizens of that area raising a big stink over some parked cars in the street, and the relationship between townies and university is pretty acrimonious.
posted by HNG on November 2nd, 2005 at 10:13 amHey Buzz,
Try walking to Meijer next time you want some food. Bonus points if you make it to the one on Jackson Road. Sure there is a bus, but I really can’t carry a weeks worth of food and beer on a single bus ride.
The real problem is that the U charges out the rear for a parking permit, not that students have cars. All my friends at small schools shelled out a hundred or so bucks to be able to park on their campus lots for a term. Around here it runs you 500-600 for a blue tag. If you got the U to lower rates and build some more garages most people would park there and they wouldn’t be a problem. As it is I doubt a lot of the staff can afford 500-600 a year just to park at their job!
posted by HoB on November 2nd, 2005 at 10:32 pmThis is the first year when I didn’t give into the $100/mo. parking bug and just left the BMW at home. I realised that I drove maybe 5000 miles in a year anyway, and most of that was racked up going to Troy/Birmingham/Royal Oak for shopping and food throughout the year. I am able to do most everything within the city and if I need toiletries or the like from the outlying stores, I just use a friend’s car (or get a ride 45 minutes home to get my car.)
I really should buy a Vespa. That’s not going to work so well in the winter, though. That car cooperative is way, way more than enticing. I’d pay for that service in an instant.
posted by eston on November 2nd, 2005 at 11:28 pmAlso, what the hell is NoBuPa? North of Bu________ / Packard? No clue, but this isn’t SoHo or TriBeCa, people.
posted by eston on November 2nd, 2005 at 11:28 pmBurns Park.
posted by Dave on November 2nd, 2005 at 11:48 pm“dare I say it?–STUDENTS DON’T NEED CARS.”
I made the statement in this way (”dare I say it…”) to be provocative, but excuse me if I seemed to be saying “students have no use for a car” when I meant to say “students don’t *need” cars.” Here’s the difference: a student who[se parents] don’t have an extra $10,000 to pay for a dorm when the family house is in Whitmore Lake or Milan *need a car*, as does the dorm-dwelling student who does shifts at an auto plant to pay her tuition. (Both of these types of students exist at Michigan.) As for the great majority of the students to inhabit North Quad, any that have a car will find a great many legitimate uses for them, such as those mentioned above. But they can also live on campus with a bike, two feet, a student id and occasional bus and taxi fare, the car coop–even the car of a fellow student who does have one– and get to Meijers, the art supply store, the grocery store, the pharmacy (now I use the pharmacy in their neighborhood on South U., and buy groceries at the co-op six blocks from the dorm site, but ….) and even get to a baseball game somehow. Believe it or not, this is how students have lived in Ann Arbor and everywhere else most of the time. If you connect the dots, you will see that one reason Ann Arbor is as good as it is (even if overrated! Cf. Fort Wayne) is actually linked to this concentration of population and pedestrian traffic at the expense of auto space.
It is a quality-of-life issue which, once again, pits perceived individual needs against community ones. If all 500 of the new residents of North Quad had cars and needed accommodation for them, there would be a problem.
Now there are two ways for this problem to be averted. One is regulation and one is the invisible hand. Most readers will not be in favor of a ban on student (or dorm-dwelling student) car ownership, which many campuses have, and I am also ambivalent about such regulation. The second is if the costs and inconveniences of owning a car on campus outweigh the marginal convenience and joy it offers. That’s why high parking problems are not the problem, in this regard, but actually part of the solution (if parking were free for every U student and staff member, for instance, half the surface area of the campus neighborhood would have to be parking lots–and that’s an urban problem, not an urban solution). So my point would be mainly aimed at people representing themselves as student advocates pushing for more accommodation for student cars. This, in my view, is not student advocacy–they should be pushing for lower tuition (and do), or more financial aid (not so much), or better teacher-student ratios (never heard it!). Student interests are not at odds with community interests, because they are at the heart of this community.
posted by Buzz on November 3rd, 2005 at 9:47 amDale, good luck on getting people to share their BMWs and Benzs. I have a lowly (by AA standards) F-150 and I’m not going to share it with some stranger.
posted by AA are hippies on November 5th, 2005 at 3:49 amBuzz, everywhere you said “students” in your above post, you could easily insert “local residents” and “local neighborhoods” instead of “North Quad” it would make just as much sense. Also, what schools ban students from having cars? I’ve been to several, and have never found that rule anywhere. It would be pretty hard to enforce, unless you have a rural campus far from a downtown area, don’t you think?
posted by Anna on November 5th, 2005 at 7:42 am