If you have ever had a night class at Skyline, you might be well aware of the fact that parking can be a problem. Not in the same sense that it is for day parking, that being a lack of spaces at the beginning of the semester. Indeed, night parking is practically hazardous.
It is a fact that the dimly lit campus parking lots are difficult to navigate, not to mention occasionally invisible due to the pea-soup-thick fog. Aside from that, there are far too few security personnel around to make people feel safe if the worst were to occur. And let’s not forget the nicknames some lots have acquired over time (e.g. lot 2 has unfortunately been referred to many times as the “scary rapist lot”).
Not to make night parking seem like a matter of life and death. That is rarely the case, however, that doesn’t mean that the opportunities for myriad things to go wrong do not exist. We at The Skyline View feel that there are far more things that can be done to make this campus safer while at the same time making night students feel that safety is not an issue to worry about.
This is not to say that security is entirely absent from campus in the evenings, but sometimes it seems as though their sole purpose is to write parking tickets to those students that have trouble parking where they should. It should also be mentioned that one of the day-pass- parking machines has recently been removed. This, no doubt, has probably affected the amount of night students willing to park on campus, perhaps forcing them to park off campus, which in turn, forces them to walk more to their cars which could be hazardous-not to mention annoying.
Perhaps the most unfortunate fact is that Skyline’s campus security does not have enough authority to enforce violations of the law. Speeding is hardly an issue on the loop road, thanks to the speed bumps. However, in the decreased light of night, pedestrians walking to their cars are in much more danger than their daytime counterparts. It is not uncommon for night students to find themselves staring into the headlights of an oncoming speeding car, as well as the local wildlife.
Handing out parking tickets has proven to be an effective way of preventing illegal parking. If security was authorized to give speeding tickets, especially at night, we would see a drop in that infraction also.
Improved lighting would no doubt help the night parking situation greatly. Not only would more light illuminate pedestrians, it would also illuminate those with ill intent. While Skyline is not the most crime-ridden campus on the Peninsula, vandalism still occurs on this campus. Also, in recent years rapes have been known to happen in the unattended parking lots, something that is highly serious and should be treated as such.
Granted, measures have been taken to prevent such crimes from happening. Lot 2 is now chained-closed after 10 p.m. While this is a good thing, there is still a problem-students can get locked in, forcing them to wait around until security happens to pass by and let them out.
With all that can be done to improve parking at night, The Skyline View has some suggestions that might work:
* Put back the other day-pass parking machine as to lower the number of student parking tickets.
* Install more lights throughout campus-it’s safer, without a doubt.
* Chain the gate to Lot 2 later (for example, 11 p.m.), while increasing the watch of high-crime lots.
* Overall, increase the number of security personnel on campus at night. With the addition of more personnel, students, staff and faculty will not only feel safer, but will be safer.
If, and when, such changes are made to Skyline College, night students will no longer feel left in the dark, so to speak. A safe campus is one that fosters a calm and positive learning environment, something that this school could certainly be proud of.