Imagine getting to school every day without the worry of snatching a coveted parking spot.

Students might feel this way if a plan made by the SIU Board of Trustees in the 1970s was implemented.

In the ‘70s there was a plan at SIU to build a monorail system to solve the parking issue on campus. The monorail system would allow students to park at a large parking garage, where the towers now stand, and ride a monorail to school.

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But, the plan was eventually abandoned.

There are 10,129 decal parking spaces in total for students and faculty to park on campus. The university has sold 9,538 parking decals as of last week, Patti Diggle, coordinator of the SIU parking division said, which leaves 591 spaces without considering the amount of time students and faculty spend in a single spot.

Diggle said school officials made a plan in 2006 to make campus parking more convenient for both students and faculty. According to the 2006 Campus Master Plan, parking structures may be added north of Woody Hall, west of Neckers Hall and west of Rehn Hall in hopes of alleviating parking problems.

The university’s parking system includes mainly peripheral parking lots with some internal lots, Diggle said, which resembles many other universities’ systems. According to the 2006 Campus Master Plan, lots on the perimeters of campus will be expanded.

Commuters now use the perimeter parking lots more because the campus’s parking garage was demolished between the fall 2011 and spring 2012 semesters and other lots changed the decal restrictions, creating a ripple effect of commuters moving to different parking lots around campus, she said. The garage, which was located by the Student Center, was torn down to make room for the university’s new Student Services building, which was the first phase of the new parking plan.

Some students and faculty were not happy with having to find another place to park because of the demolition.

Kishana Williams, a senior in criminology, said she does not think the parking garage should have been torn down, as it was better than the current parking situation.

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Williams said the parking garage was a more central location from which students could navigate campus, and now she has to walk much further and has trouble finding parking lots that correspond with her decal.

Some students are also trying to find campus-parking alternatives because of increased decal prices and space unavailability.

James Noonan, a junior from Rockford studying marketing, said he did not buy a parking sticker this year because of such issues. He said he prefers to take his chances parking along the street.

“Parking stickers are outrageous and I’m going to dodge buying one as long as I can,” he said. “Even if I get one ticket, it’s still less expensive than buying the sticker.”

Noonan’s alternative to buying a sticker is taking chances, but some students have found other options such as the university’s mass transit system. Kevin Arthurs, a senior in automotive technology, said he takes the bus now because of the decal price increase.

Some students, like Arthurs, are trying to take advantage of the university’s transportation options, like the Saluki Express, as an alternative for parking on campus. The Saluki Express has a route that goes around Carbondale to pick up students and is free to all students with their student ID.

The monorail system, like Saluki Express, would have been have been an alternative to parking on campus. Shannon McDonald, a professor in the school of architecture, said the monorail would have been a great addition to the SIU in the ‘70s, but now it is out of date.

“It made sense then, but now there are better things than a monorail,” McDonald said. “Driverless vehicles made with automated vehicle networks that are energy efficient and move from point to point.”

McDonald said she would like to see SIU adopt a more advanced system for solving the parking problem than a monorail, although some students think the prospect of a monorail is inviting.

Kristian Chevalier, a junior from Lebanon in paralegal studies, said a monorail would be easier for her and save time walking to campus.

“It would be useful cause I’m not looking forward to those long walks in the winter time in the snow,” she said.

Chevalier said even though she has a car, she cannot find a place to park and sometimes is forced to resort to meter parking so she can get to class on time. She said something should be done about parking, whether it is a new monorail system or adding more parking spaces in the lots.

Keegan McGee, a sophomore from Marion studying accounting, also agreed the system would be convenient.

“I always have trouble finding a parking spot in certain lots and on Wednesday’s. I wouldn’t have to worry about finding a spot, I could just go up there and get on the monorail,” she said

The reason some students and faculty have difficulty finding places to park is they do not arrive to the university early and they want a parking space next to their building, Diggle said.