ifopday, August 6, 2001
o PINION
In ad). This rate ap;
j get an additiona,
luled to end to qui:
THE BATTALION
construction begins
s the West Campus garage beneficial to all...
LP WANTED
sign Engineer:
/olve all aspects tii
ng: concept tfc
design, and dels
trill also include ir<
/, testing, relinem^_ r .. , , .
np-up. a wotejijM iter years or debate and
o/E and rapid discussion, construction
ability to work ^ t *
rapidly understr:l| mis set to be g ln on the
and requirements Best Campus parking
utred. Whileexpe* ra p, e 'fhe never-ending
jectftc areas is nets D , D r , °
dude fuel ceils, pc* process or campus ennance-
and test equipme- meat at Texas A&M will
equipment. . ^ despite some con-
lomtonng equip-- i 1 ■
ediation equipme Mrns the garage will be an
etc. a minimumEiu nt . onvei -d ence to students. In reality, the park-
or Physics or si. • ,
elated fields; As* garage is a necessary improvement that
a expected to ac sljould be welcomed. It will better serve those
development, ter. ::m ve j- n to t he growing complex of buildings
effort of prototyp« ?T & ° ■ j- ,
commercial or West Campus tiy providing covered parking
3uid possess sic?.»d safer access to the area.
® , ^ n<C, i ) J ft, B Two weeks ago, the A&M System Board of
om for detailed hie ■egents awarded the $40 million garage con-
■rtctBch0iynnttffr« ru C y on con tract t<> J .1. Vaughn Construction
77840 ait »o. of Houston. With construction to begin
979-764-5794 jjjiis fall, the garage will occupy the parking area
-soor, SoftwMOwM'rth of the Student Recreation Center. The
is looking forar •'•Bx- S tory r building will feature at least 3,190
r1 wiS r sy2® aces ’ providing easy passage to three fre-
round in Active ),;Miented facilities: the Rec Center, Kyle Field
r»g atl and MFC p eec ] \ re na. Construction also will include
i a ve a backgmnitK . . ., ....
i strategies on Pedestrian walkway connecting both main
Ability to tratwBid West campuses through an underground
j^embe^ wr l 111116 ^ be l ow Wellborn Road. The archway
ling are required i|iitit currently stretches above the road will be
m Engineering, n lemoved because it does not meet the standards
nee or equivalertsC’ | r . , .
eicfs, As an eng'- t* 16 Americans with Disabilities Act.
to actively parte Tony Heger, director of the A&M System
^fa.-.lmes Administration Division, said the ap
es well as tecta'i proximately two-year long construction is
y based on ec ■rranged to cause as little trouble for students
t for detailed info. sf:€ ., , . ,. , . .
itech@iynntecncrj|f s possible. According to a news story last Mon-
76io Eastmp; Bay in The Battalion, ITeger said the construc-
r784o Atm fel |j on team “bas been doing great work with the
oedical center in Houston where he has been
forking in tight, cramped quarters but in such
way as to allow the functioning of the medical
enter to continue unimpeded.”
For students, construction of the West Cam-
Jius parking garage will be a temporary nui-
ance. In the end, the finished product will be
forth it. Unfortunately, Wellborn will have one
^closed at a time. Also, John Kimbrough
ftiilevard from Wellborn to Olsen Boulevard
dll be shut down as improvements are made,
uch closures cannot be avoided when working
msuch a large project, and it could have been a
Or an inefficient
bother to students
traveling to class?
o
pany currently"-
)vide classroori-
etitive wages. PS
t 823-1775xt.ltf|
vays looking
oositions in on:
and Design ero
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ifacturing. Our (PITS) announced that
f a CNC Mill, Me'
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Plonday througt
)le schedules. I;
ndividuals that
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.ynntech E0E
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g resume to: If
tmark Dr„ CoP
in Aug. 1, the Parking,
jTraffic and Trans
portation Services
oreparations for the new
West Campus parking
garage were underway. Any
student can attest that find
ing a place to park on cam-
3iis is next to impossible, so a new parking
garage sounds like an excellent solution.
However, the University should realize that
the solution to the parking problem is not as
led for S^A | siln P le as building a new garage,
ard worker, c. The most adverse and immediate effect of
kskfofRick* tbe garage, albeit temporary, is the construc
tion itself. As a result of the construction, Joe
Routt Boulevard will be closed from Well
born Road to Clark Street, and John Kim
brough Boulevard will be closed from Well
born Road to Olsen Boulevard. The
--'I convenience of being able to drive on Well
born and go to the Recreation Center on
John Kimbrough or go down Joe Routt to
check their mail at the Memorial Student
Center will be lost.
Some students will be concerned that traf
fic that usually goes down those roads will
back up. They need not worry, because the
parking garage is being constructed on Park
ing Area 56, where there are over 900 parking
spots for students. That means that these 900
| spots will disappear during construction —
I which means much less traffic to clog up these
I particular roads. Instead, parking space seek
ers will back up traffic elsewhere.
The timing of construction is illogical.
Why would construction for a parking garage
start during the fall, when school is starting,
inng: inject®
Lab Tech#
ludent applying'
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jme to (979f
on at 2706 Osf
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en ages 9,6 S-'
tired. Call
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- and more notably, football season is begin-
dents
j notetakers'-'
pply at 701U7
:ross from t*
3-2255 for nW
cal concess:
Call 694-362*
d on pat
ning? During any football game this season,
nearly 4,000 people will have to find a spot to
park further away.
The defense that although people may be
parking further away, they will have the luxury
of riding new buses is no solace to the situation.
The fact remains that students, alumni and visi
tors will not be fighting for spots closer to their
lot worse. Getting around A&M is not nearly as
difficult as it is at some other campuses. We are
fortunate to have the room to expand in the
first place. Some schools^ including the Univer
sity of Texas, are completely locked in with no
way to expand. It is far better to have to take a
different route because of growth and improve
ment than to feel claustrophobic when going to
class.
More spaces, a safer
environment and a greater
amount of covered parking
is what students and alumni
understandably want.
But it cannot be had
without paying a price.
The West Campus parking garage will better
serve the students who wish to park in the area.
One will no longer have to maneuver around
potholes filled with filthy rainwater to fight for
a spot under the blistering sun. An under
ground tunnel can be taken instead of crossing
a busy, five-lane street. Parking also will be
more plentiful. Currently, there are about 1,000
parking spaces occupying the area where the
garage will be located. After construction is
complete, the amouniitaof available parking
spaces will more than triple. Students who
might complain about the lack of available
parking should consider how well they have it
here compared to other campuses. And now,
more spaces are on the way. Two years of taking
another route or parking somewhere else is a
small price to pay. Parking garages will last a lot
longer than the memory of an inconvenience.
The West Campus parking garage also will
make it easier on alumni who attend football
games. Many of them now will be able to park in
a covered area very close to Kyle Field. The crit
icism that the garage is being built only for foot
ball season is misguided. The school should
strive to keep wealthy alumni happy. Yes, their
support often benefits athletics first, but why is
that a bad thing? Alumni should be well taken
care of. Often, it is their dollars diat help to re
furbish buildings, build new ones, provide schol
arships and assist in research. Many of them
want the garage, and it will benefit the students
after a temporary inconvenience. The adminis
tration should take steps to ensure that students
can use the garage for both contract and day
parking, similar to the other garages around
campus. More spaces, a safer environment and a
greater amount of covered parking is what stu
dents and alumni understandably want. But it
cannot be had without paying a price.
Jonathan Jones is a senior
political science major.
class or football game but further away and hav
ing to ride a bus to get there.
And what happens after the lot is construct
ed? Under student body president Laurie Nick
el, the Student Senate passed the West Campus
: f £ft
The University should realize
that the solution to the
parking problem is not
as simple] as building
a nei9\ garage.
' r - nr
parking garage bilL j£ptated, “Commuter per
mit holders will be-fckbporarily affected ad
versely through the loss of current spaces, the
placement of the gartge is not consistent with
the general trend cmwgstward expansion and
the location appears to primarily benefit special
RUBEN DELUNA/7h£ Battalion
events, rather than academic expansion.”
Those issues are true now, just as they were
true then. The location of the garage seems to
be constructed with the football game visitor in
mind. This is even made more apparent since
the new pedestrian crossing of Wellborn is be
ing constructed at the same time.
Not to be misconstrued, the need for more
parking during football games and other special
events is a great problem for the University and
its students. But the issue remains that once the
garage is built it will be filled iifimediately, and
there will still be students fighting for a space.
What Texas A&M needs is a detailed, all-en
compassing plan that can truly resolve the park
ing problem it has, rather than a quick fix such
as a parking garage that might cause more trou
ble than it is actually worth.
Reid Bader is a junior
political science major.
«
Page 5
Sexual safety,
not abstinence,
must be taught
(U-WIRE) — There are times when ig
norance isn’t exactly bliss: When a professor
calls on you in class and you have no idea
what the answer is. When you don’t read the
weather report and you find yourself stranded
in a blizzard. When what you don’t know can,
in fact, hurt you.
When it comes to sex education, what you
don’t know can do more than hurt you — it can
kill you. In the era of AIDS, ignorance about sex
can be deadly, and young people are often the
ones who are dying. Here are some scary statis
tics: HIV infection is increasing more rapidly
among young people than any other age group,
according to die New England Journal of Medi
cine. One in four new HIV infections in the
United States occurs in people younger than 22.
In times such as these, “abstinence-only”
programs — through which teenagers are told
virtually nothing about sex beyond “don’t do it”
— are not going to cut it.
Sex education, or the lack thereof, has be
come an issue again with the news that the
Bush administration is “scaling back efforts to
promote family planning and contraception
while aggressively promoting ‘abstinence-only’
programs” (“Administration Promoting Absti
nence,” The Washmgton Port, July 30).
Refusing to provide young people with sex
education — basic knowledge about what they
can do to protect themselves from sexually
transmitted diseases and unwanted pregnancies
— is patently irresponsible.
Keeping teenagers ignorant about how to
protect themselves if they have sex is like send
ing a soldier into war with a blindfold on and
nothing but a butter knife for self-defense.
Conservatives are concerned that putting
teenagers through sex education somehow en
courages them to have sex. They believe that
putting teenagers through a program where ab
stinence is the only option will prevent them
from having sex.
As nice as that may sound, the fact is that
most teenagers have sex, regardless of what
they are told about it. The 1995 National Sur
vey of Family Growth, found that more than
half of teenagers ages 15 to 19 were sexually ac
tive — specifically, 51 percent of females and 56
percent of males. Two-thirds of all teenagers
are sexually active by the time they are 18, and
there is nothing, really, that parents can do to
stop them, short of building dungeons in their
basements (no one get any ideas, now).
So if teenagers do have sex, the best we can
do is to encourage them to postpone becom
ing sexually active until they’re ready, and
provide them with information they need to
keep themselves free of STD infection and
unwanted pregnancies.
We must face the reality that most teenagers
will have sex no matter what we tell them. We
can all moan about how terrible it is that
teenagers are sexually active before they really
know what they’re doing. We shouldn’t, how
ever, act as if not telling teenagers anything
about sex will prevent them from having it.
That’s just not the way it works.
There is proof that abstinence-only educa
tion is less effective than sex education when it
comes to preventing one obvious consequence
of teenage sexual activity: teenage pregnancy.
Research shows that recent sharp declines in
teenage pregnancy rates among sexually active
teenagers are due more to teens’ use of contra
ceptives than a newfound devotion to absti
nence. According to the Alan Guttmacher In
stitute’s 1994 report entitled “Sex and America’s
Teenagers,” only 20 percent of the decline in
the pregnancy rate was due to decreased sexual
activity, while 80 percent was the result of the
more effective use of contraceptives.
Even with the progress that has been made,
teen pregnancy rates are far higher in the Unit
ed States than in other developed countries, ac
cording to the AGI report. U.S. rates are twice
as high as those in England and Canada, and
nine times as high as those in Japan or the
Netherlands. The age at which young people
become sexually active in the United States and
those countries is similar, so looking at the sex
education policies in the other countries can
point to what causes the pregnancy rates in the
United States to be higher.
It probably isn’t a coincidence that policies in
England, Canada and the Netherlands favor sex
education, openness about sex and access to
contraception. If the United States continues in
the direction of encouraging sex education and
giving young people access to contraceptives,
the rates of teen pregnancy and AIDS infection
may decrease further. Abstinence-only educa
tion is more about morality than it is about re
ality and it simply won’t get the job done.
Laura Sahramaa
Cavalier Daily
University of Virginia