UCalgary is bringing back free parking
By Abbas Hussain, November 4 2024—
The University of Calgary is entering the new academic year with a series of unexpected changes. These include increased tuition fees, the introduction of new courses and perhaps most surprisingly, the return of free parking. While this decision might catch some by surprise, Andrew Park, the vice-president of finance and chief financial officer, shed light on the reasoning in an interview with the Gauntlet.
“We are committed to making the university easily accessible for all students and faculty, and part of that decision is ensuring parity in access for all, no matter what mode of transport students and faculty use,” said Park. When pressed further about the meaning of his statement, Park said, “In truth, we want to encourage more people to drive to the university as it’s simply a better and more convenient mode of transport, with the ultimate goal of making the city better by introducing more chemicals into the atmosphere such as carbon dioxide and the Smart Toxic Universal Parallel Ice Dust.”
When asked further about the plans for the parking lots on campus, Park said, “Our ultimate vision for the parking lots is quite grand. Our most impressive plan involves the Arts Parkade, located inside the Arts Building where the Fine Art faculty is located. The plan is to convert the parking lot into a creative space where car enthusiasts can meet and show off their phenomenal and exquisite automobiles.”
Park continued, “We will install neon lights and add a smoke machine to help create an underground and authentic feel to the space, add soundproof walls to allow the users of the space to rev up their engines and show off the amazing sound of their highly customized and modified automobiles without disturbing the rest of the university. We also plan to add a custom auto shop to let users of the space customize their cars to their heart’s content.”
“If this renovation to the Arts Parkade goes well, we plan to add more car-friendly spaces to the university, such as a dragstrip to help enable races between fellow students as well as a Formula 1 circuit to help inspire the next generation of racers here,” Park claimed.
“Students feel like the university is out of touch with people of this generation, so we figured what’s a better way to be in touch than to introduce something people of this generation are very into and consider cool. Plus, it would make our university stand out from the thousands of universities in the world, making UCalgary a destination for non-academic events rather than just a place of higher learning.”
This article is part of our fake news humour section.