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All TCU. All the time.

TCU 360

TCU 360

All TCU. All the time.

TCU 360

Alexa Landestoy stands on the set of NBC Sports Washington. (Photo courtesy of Alexa Landestoy)
TCU alumna is grateful for the opportunity to talk sports
By Maggie Hale, Staff Writer
Published Mar 18, 2024
Alexa Landestoy thanks the trailblazers before her and hopes to continue to inspire women in sports.

Letter to the Editor: Construction exacerbates parking problem

After three weeks of holiday comfort food and home cooking, the first stop on my list after I got back to TCU was the campus Rec Center. I was looking forward to finally snagging a great parking space with almost no competition.

Unfortunately, once I arrived at the site, I was greeted, not by a practically empty parking lot, but by a fenced-off mound of dirt and gravel.

I was even more chagrined to learn that the lot wasn’t just temporarily closed for paving: it was being replaced with a new administration building.

There are more people at TCU every year. The school’s student population is on the rise and there are no hints that this trend will change any time soon. Yet for some reason, university administrators continue to respond to the influx of new students by further reducing the already limited number of parking spaces on campus. The logic behind this strategy has always eluded me.

Please don’t peg me as some loudmouthed malcontent. I understand that TCU administrators need somewhere to work and that students don’t walk or carpool nearly as much as they could and should. But bulldozing this particular parking lot was an especially irksome decision because it’s one of the few easily accessible commuter lots on West Campus.

For most commuters, driving is an unavoidable necessity. Razing the gym parking lot is also a safety concern for me and other women who work out after dark. With the Rec Center lot gone, the closest commuter lots will be by the football stadium and library, both of which are several blocks away.

Don’t get me wrong – I fully appreciate all of TCU’s new facilities, and the campus looks great. But maybe it’s time that TCU made some more room for its students. Being a college student is hard enough without having to park half a mile away from your classes.

Chelsea Smith is a senior broadcast journalism and English major from Albuquerque, N.M.

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