At last, Moorpark College has a parking structure. Unfortunately for me, and many other students, the parking structure comes at a terrible cost; its birth heralded the death of the beloved overflow parking lot.

The parking structure is a welcome addition to the campus. The 743 parking spaces that were added with its completion are a valuable asset to the students at Moorpark College, especially given the issues with parking in any of the upper lots.

Like many students, I parked in the overflow lot almost every day, enjoying the relative closeness to my classes that the hilltop location warranted, and occasionally getting away with not paying for a daily parking permit.

When the overflow parking lot was closed, it did not push me to begin parking in the parking structure. Although the structure has value, it isn’t close to my classes.

A month after the opening of the structure, I have noticed no significant change in the congestion that occurs in the upper parking lots every day. I’ve parked in the parking structure once, and the walk up the hill to my classes was an inconvenience. If the intention of the structure was to free up more parking, why close the overflow lot?

I believe the answer lies in the tendency of students to avoid paying for a permit when parking in the overflow lot. By closing this lot and opening the closely-watched parking structure, the school will be able to better enforce its policy on permitted parking.

In this transaction, convenience and thrift were traded for much-needed parking. The value of that trade is to be determined.