Nothing starts the semester and welcomes us all back to school, more than spending precious learning time driving around campus searching for a parking spot. How tedious to have to spend valuable learning time going in circles, rising up numerous levels in a parking garage, to find out there are no spots available at the top. As construction continues and space decreases, students continue struggling to find parking. Scheduling to leave earlier does nothing to ease the issue. In fact, leaving at an earlier hour leaves these same students trapped in Houston’s corporate world traffic and arriving close to the same time. Congested times here on campus parking lots are in the early mornings when corporate traffic is also an issue. The student body and faculty’s second option is Metro. This option usually involves taking several buses and then the train to reach our central campus from a satellite campus. This city and our school need a new form of mass transportation, and maybe Houston Community College can help.

HCCS has a large number of enrolled students that need to start their days early enough to get everything in their day done. These students require early classes for survival purposes. These students need to work to pay the bills, feed themselves, and their children. Even building garages and the Freeway expansions have not minimized the problem. At this rate, expansions and construction will continue to be a rinse & repeat cycle. As we grow in numbers every year something different has to be destroyed and recreated. This observation has left me wondering, how can we as the future members of society create a solution and not keep adding to the pre-existing conditions.

What if I told you the solution is as simple as adding a green, environmentally friendly bus system put in place specifically and exclusively for HCC students and staff? What if instead of each individual student and staff driving all the way from one satellite campus to the other, they could catch the green, environmentally friendly bus provided by Houston Community Campus. How would you like it if our school provided us with transportation that connected the specialty satellite campuses to central? This way not only is transportation available to current cross campus students, but will also allow students to be able to take a wider variety of classes that will broaden their horizons and help mold them into an efficient member of society. While more parking would ease our first world comforts, we should seek a long-term solution that could eliminate the issue altogether. The students need a dependable form of transportation to ease moving and standing congestion.

The student body is exponentially growing, and with larger numbers of enrolled students, come all of their vehicles. Not only could students take a wider variety of classes, but also unlock access to career-specific classes that are not provided at their current home campus. How can a student know which career is perfect for their lifestyle, if they cannot physically attend classes that could open their minds and eyes to it? Taking a variety of classes in liberal art is what helps guide every conscious student into pursuing a career of their dreams. As each student goes through the process of enrolling there are many factors at play. If those factors could be filtered down and diluted it would allow students to have a better, more customizable education. Specialty campus are not close to central, not all students have the correct documentation to drive. Buses supplied by the school that can help connect students to those campuses could be the solution we are all seeking. By connecting all the campuses we are allowing students to obtain the highest form of education that Houston Community College has to offer.

Most students don’t allow themselves to attend the classes they wish and limit themselves when they pursue their dreams because of lack of transportation. Houston Community College has programs with high school students that don’t even have the ability to drive yet because of the laws in the state. These students can be recruited early and taught at earlier and earlier ages. This should not be a hurdle. For families that are fortunate enough to have centuries of inheritances, this is never an obstacle. Why should it be an issue for our students? If Houston Community College can help more students complete and expand their education by providing transportation, don’t you think they should? Even if the students had to find a way to fund it, it could help change our future as a school and as a city.