Monday’s front-page story in the Northern Star about parking should have had a different headline: “No parking anywhere, anytime, anymore.”

If you haven’t noticed, there have been big changes to parking on campus, including the removal of 152 meter spaces – apparently taken out to make room for more yellow permit spaces, blue spaces and $510-per-year reserved spaces.

Campus Parking Services has said it is trying to change the campus culture by having students rely less on their cars and more on other modes of transportation.

But this is NIU, and it is well-known that a majority of NIU students rely on their cars. Perhaps once the city of DeKalb mutates into a true “college town” and students truly don’t need their cars to get around, Campus Parking Services can do its part to change the culture.

Last semester, there were about 20 metered spots in Lot 20 next to the Chick Evans Field House. This year, those prime parking spots were removed and replaced not with yellow permit spots, but with blue. Some of those front-row spots have already been reserved. The others have empty poles awaiting a faculty member to write out a check to reserve the space. It’s a big change from the previous 50 cents per hour the spots earned.

On paper, the changes Parking Services made look great. Lot allocations were changed, so now there are an estimated 134 yellow permit spots on campus, including 25 personally reserved yellow permit spots. Although most of those spots are already reserved, according to Parking Services, students can reserve one of these “high roller” spots for just $300 per year – $240 more per spot than what a yellow permit would cost.

Perhaps it is time to look into investing a chunk of land on campus for an additional parking deck, one dedicated to the students. There are, after all, 25,000 of us.