Because I have nowhere to park my car but on the street in front of the rental, I find the 24-hour parking law in Athens to be wasteful, unjust and discriminatory. My overpriced slum has no garage, so I am forced to park on the street. I am a student at Ohio University, and it would be lazy, expensive, impractical and wasteful for me to drive to class every day. In fact, when I had off-street parking, I went for weeks at a time without driving my car. I use my bicycle to get around town in an effort to save money on gas and time getting to class.
The fact that I have to move my car daily to avoid getting a ticket is ridiculous. Athens claims to be an eco-city, yet we still have this wasteful law in place. As a resident, I rightfully have space to park my car, and I have the freedom to leave it there if I don't want to drive it. Athens imposes its money-seeking will on residents of houses without off-street parking. The city department may claim it's for the benefit of everyone, so people don't tie up the on-street parking places, but I see right through that lie. The only one who benefits from this nuisance law is the city and its $336,342 in parking ticket revenue (from 2005 as listed on the city auditor's Web site). This unfair taxation on people who cannot afford to buy a decent home or rent an upscale apartment with off-street parking is an abomination.
The 24-hour parking law needs to be banished for residents of Athens. I have never heard a single legitimate argument against parking permits for residents. It's very simple: For each person who has their name on a lease for a rental without off-street parking, you issue a hanging permit tag, just like the ones issued by Ohio University for on-campus parking. When a tenant moves, they transfer the tag back to the landlord, who then gives it to the next tenant. You could even charge a $5 fee for each tag and transfer. If it burns 0.2 gallons of gas to drive around the block to avoid a ticket, and you do that every day six days a week for a year, the total cost for $3.00/gallon gasoline is $187.20. I can't afford to waste almost $200 a year on this stupid law, and that does not even include the few times of forgetting to move and getting a $20.00 parking ticket. Here's another suggestion: Cut down the number of meter maids on payroll and you won't have to steal an extra $300,000 of Athens residents' money.
Ryan Risdon is a senior mechanical engineering major.
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Letter to the Editor
