Starting Nov. 8, NKU is hosting a big old traffic party, and we’re all invited.

Construction on Lake Inferior will begin that day, causing the staff/faculty parking lot J next to the AST building to be closed.

So where will all of those people park? In lot I. You know, the one behind Landrum where all of us students park.

What do they give us in return? Lot E, the small parking lot next to the Baptist Student Union that was a student parking lot up until last year.

Facilities Management giveth, and they taketh away.

Now I’m all for the Lake Inferior renovation. I think it will finally add an attractive land piece to our campus. It will no longer completely look like a concrete, nuclear wasteland.

However, it would have been nice if they would have prepared a bit more for the parking situation.

The new parking garage should have been finished by now, which would have alleviated some of the congestion. Not only is it not finished, but they are eventually going to start charging for it.

An e-mail sent to students Nov. 1 by Larry Blake, the assistant vice president of Facilities Management, said, “Lot I is adequately sized to accommodate all parking currently accommodated in lot E as well as that lost in lot J.”

That’s great. What about lot E being able to accommodate all of the parking in lot I? Lot E is nowhere near the size of lot I.

Where is that overflow going to go? Maybe they’ll go to the parking garage, where they’ll soon have to pay $1 to park once it’s completed, whenever that will be.

Lot E is also less likely to accommodate lot I’s parking, because now many students who live on campus will park there. That makes fewer parking spots available to students going to class.

It’s also frustrating that faculty and staff are allowed to park in student parking lots. Even though lot E is being reverted back to a student parking lot, faculty and staff who have been parking there all year can still park there. It could end up being a shorter walk for them to continue to park there.

Hypothetically, a professor could take the last parking spot in the student lot because it is convenient. That then leaves the student driving all around campus trying to find a spot, making them late for class and then end up missing a quiz.

Also, the faculty and staff that park in lot E could technically continue to park there without ramification. What incentive do they have to park elsewhere?

If they are going to designate certain lots for certain people, then it should stay that way. There shouldn’t be a parking hierarchy allowing some people to park wherever they desire.

Facilities Management should have done a better job at preparing for this situation. The plans to renovate Lake Inferior have been in effect for quite some time, yet students were informed of the parking ramifications just a week before they occur.

So you may want to leave for a school a little early starting Nov. 8. You never know which parking lot they’ll take away from us next.