In Response to the UrbanMilwaukee.com Article

Recently, the totally awesome website urbanmilwaukee.com posted a front-page editorial/article saying how the SA is subsidizing parking and encouraging car-driving and not giving a squat about the commun -- here, read it: http://urbanmilwaukee.com/2011/03/10/uwm-should-end-the-parking-subsidy/

As a member of the Student Association of UWM, I believe I have an explanation for what's going on (if you read the comments, then you already read this).

First off, we are actively lobbying against the loss of the lakefront lots. Those lots allow free parking for hundreds of UWM students on a daily basis. If we do lose the lots, we do not want to force these students to pay four dollars a day every day to park. This is why we are suggesting raising segregated fees 15 dollars per student per semester -- to try and make the loss of the lots much more manageable for our commuter students.

This isn't a matter of us encouraging students to take the bus as opposed to driving to school (we are encouraging that quite sufficiently with our participation in the U-PASS program). I personally know several students that live well beyond the range of our increasingly cut-back bus system (i.e. Racine, Zion). Living near/on campus is simply not an economic solution for many UWM students in these times, and the loss of many of our free parking spots would be a deal-killer for more than a few students. We recently acquired a whole parking garage and I see no reason why we cannot transfer the lost spots to the new location. It most certainly will save us those students that cannot afford an estimated $500/semester tacked on to their transit.

Furthermore, UWM has been contributing more now than ever to the urban environment of Milwaukee. For the first time in our history, we have enough residence hall space for an entire freshman class. Chancellor Santiago, before his departure, was contemplating a mandatory on-campus first year for all incoming freshmen. And, unlike certain other urban campuses in our city, our new dorms and proposed schools are not cloistered together in a single area but woven in to the fabric of the East Side and Downtown, with the regrettable exception of Innovation Park (which the Student Association had no input on).

Try not to think of the SA as "subsidizing parking." We're trying to not only keep commuter students at our university, but ensure that they can stay on campus and participate in our community without having to shell out hundreds more to do so. At the same time, the University is renewing its commitment to contribute to the city by pursuing the School of Freshwater Sciences and the School of Public Health.