An incident on October 2, in which a car drove into the AQ reflecting pond, actually offered up some inspiration for SFU admin on how to resolve the parking congestion problem at the SFU Burnaby campus. When SFU admin heard about the accident, they were struck with the idea to open up some parking spaces in the pond.
These pond parking passes were being advertised as “close to campus” and “scenic.” They weren’t advertised for long, though, since the pond parking passes have already sold out. People are already fighting each other over who gets to submerge their vehicle in a body of water because that is how dire the parking situation has gotten at this campus.
SFU admin know that the parking congestion problem is far from solved, though. Seeing how the regular parking passes sold out after just the first week of classes this fall, SFU will have to offer up many new spots, and they have been brainstorming new ways to create more space.
One of the new ways SFU was proposing to solve the parking problem was inspired by the sadistic game that is the SFU Surrey parking lottery. The idea was a parking game show, where students would compete in degrading games on live television to determine who would get a parking pass. Admin considered the idea, but decided to abandon it in fear of exactly how far SFU students would go for a parking pass.
The second idea SFU admin entertained was to play the environment card and make this all an issue about global warming. By doing that, they could blame the contribution diesel cars make to climate change as the reason they wouldn’t permit most cars on campus, thereby freeing many parking spaces. The idea is still being discussed, though, because all SFU admin would have to purchase hybrids to abide by their own rules, and no one really wants to be the guy with the hybrid.
If worst comes to worst, SFU is considering just converting the entire Burnaby campus into a concrete parking garage because that’s what this stupid brutalist campus already looks like anyways.
