I recently saw a bumper sticker at Western Kentucky University that read "if you see my professor, tell him I'm searching for a parking spot." To any hilltopper, this is funny and true. Parking at WKU is a fervent topic that stirs many frustrated feelings and tiresome stories about arriving to campus hours early to drive for what seems like hours searching for a parking spot; making students AND professors late to class and meetings. I hear students debating who has not moved their car in the longest, because they got a front row parking spot and do not want to move it, or fighting about who gets to drive that day so they do not have to re-park. Well here is an interesting solution to all this madness--using Twitter or social media to help people find available parking spots.
I got this idea from Louisiana State University, who has more than 23,000 parking spots on their campus and believe the solution to aiding students in parking is in fact social media. I refer to the recent article (http://www.wafb.com/story/15465490/lsu-parking-employing-social-media), which explains that the school has begun using a twitter account that students can subscribe to and follow to get update on not only traffic reports, but also on open parking spots in different locations. They already have 500 followers and continue to grow. However, that is not all. They have also added a phone app for smartphones called "Trans-loc" that tracks their buses in real time.
I am curious how a system or application of social media such as this would work at Western Kentucky University, and not only change the way students get to and from class, but how they work with and feel about WKU Parking and Transportation. I see how social media could easily be a solution to this parking problem, and maybe cause some students (and may professors) to take down negative bumper stickers about WKU parking.
Saturday, September 24, 2011
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4 comments:
I think this would be a great idea for WKU to take a look into. This would be extremely helpful when trying to find a place to park and would take away some unwanted stress about it too.
This is such a simple solution to such a large problem on our campus. I lived on campus for three years and I can honestly say parking was by far the most annoying aspect. I was definitely late to my fair share of classes because I had to go to multiple parking lots to find a free spot. There are however some logistics I don't really understand-- like how someone would tweet about a new spot (possibly number the spots and if someone leaves tweet that it is open?) WKU does have a number that you can call or text that tells how far a bus is from a particular stop. I used that many times last year and it was very helpful! Great article find! I hope this comes to WKU's campus
I want one of these bumper stickers!!! I always think it is funny that teachers complain about parking almost as much as we as students do. I agree with you Cecily in that this is indeed something that western should look into implementing. Ali you make a great point as well in that it is definitely a disadvantage of living on campus is parking. I think eventually using twitter to help with the parking problem would be a great thing; I just do not really understand how it would work. I think an app of parking here at WKU would be neat. You could post on the app when you are leaving a spot, and you could give the location of the spot and the time.
I would love to tweet about a free parking spot! Although I have no need to take the buses anymore, I would have appreciated an app that tracked where the next bus was because sometimes they are so behind it's quicker to walk. WKU's parking and transportation policies and structure, is one of the most inefficient and illogical systems I've ever dealt with. I hear students spit out great ideas to improve the system all the time, but it seems like WKU isn't listening. If WKU set up a Twitter account or created an app, it would improve they way students view the institution because it would be an initiative to put our needs first.. and after all, aren't WE the most important part of WKU? Nice post!
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