As a commuter student on this campus for three years, I know all too well the problems this campus has with parking. Not only is there not enough parking on campus, but the parking that does exist is limited by time and cost. Most commuter students stay on campus several hours per day. With two hour time limits in most on-campus parking spaces, repeated meter payments or parking tickets are the only options.

My project focuses on making a point and sending a message to students on campus. What if parking was free and more readily available? How would it improve your everyday life on campus? I know my own answer to these questions, as a commuter who tries everyday to find convienent parking to no avail. My hope is that students like me who depend on driving to campus everyday will see my installation and raise their own questions about the parking situation on campus.

If RPI can pay millions of dollars to build massive research facilities like the Bio-Tech Center and EMPAC, you would think they could spare a few thousand dollars to create a few more parking lots on campus. Or at the very least spare us all of the parking meters and short time limits. They certainly don't need student's $4 per day for parking, especially when they are collecting tens of thousands per student every year in tuition. If they created even one more additional parking lot on campus and allowed only students to buy permits for a reasonable price (not the $350 per semester they are asking for parking in the new parking garage) it would help to alleviate this problem.

My installation uses ideas from David Hockney's "Pearlblossom Highway," as well as my own earlier short study, to replace current parking signs with new ones. A subtle change like replacing a parking sign may have little effect on most people, but for students trying to find a parking spot every day, finding a new sign may be very thought provoking. I don't intend to create change overnight, but every additional student who feels the way I do, is one step closer to bringing about a change that would make one small part of life at RPI better for many students.