According to an article in the Los Angeles. Times, gas prices last month were at a record high. The average price of gas last month was $3.37 per-gallon compared to just $3.10 per-gallon in January 2011. Two years ago, gas prices were under $3.00. The majority of students at CSULB are commuters, so that means that in addition to having to buy for textbooks, food, and pay bills we’re also trying to scrape money together in order to pay for gas.
College students are broke as it is, but the rise in gas prices is weighing even heavier on our wallets. This semester, CSULB has sold over 1,000 carpool permits. With gas prices as high as they are and the economy still weak, these carpool permits are something of a godsend and a lot more students should consider purchasing them.
Every student at CSULB already knows how difficult parking on campus can be. Parking in the early morning or late afternoon isn’t too bad, but in the early afternoon when the majority of students are getting to school, the parking lots can be hectic and way overcrowded.
Circling the same parking lot a few times is common and there’s nothing worse than having someone stalk you from behind the wheel as you walk to your vehicle.
If more students bought carpool permits we’d save less on buying individual parking permits and gas. Even if you don’t buy the permit, and just carpool using a regular parking permit, you’d still save a ton on gas.
But, while carpooling is a great answer for people looking to save money, there are also a few setbacks that can come with it. First, you need to find someone who has the same or a similar schedule as you, and that alone can be a pain in the butt.
Finding someone who operates the same way as you do is also essential. If you value punctuality, teaming up with someone who’s perpetually late will drive you insane. And there’s always the chance that one of you will get sick or just want to ditch, leaving the other person in a bind.
Carpooling isn’t the perfect choice. honestly, if a lot of students start buying carpooling permits we’ll eventually run into the same parking problems that we have right now.
There are a limited amount of carpooling parking spaces on campus and if more people start using the carpool permits, we’ll run into some problems.
Competition is tough already when it comes to parking on campus, and it’ll only get worse if students start competing for the carpool spots.
If everyone starts buying carpool permits, the university will have to make the carpool sections of the parking lots bigger. Construction on campus would be a huge invoncenience. The other option would be to just turn more regular parking spots into carpooling spots, but that could take a long time and it’ll take a while to get used to.
But, I think that beats the alternative for the time being. Being broke all the time and stressing out over not having enough money to pay for gas sucks and if I can cut down on that stress by having a carpool permit, I’d say it’s worth the investment.
Alexis Reza is a senior journalism major and opinions editor for the Daily 49er.
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