The university announced Wednesday that a 607-car parking lot will replace the Graduate Circle apartments next fall.

The new lot, which will be located on the corner of Hastings Road and University Drive, will compensate for the loss of 1,200 parking spaces in Lot 83, which will be the home of the Penn State Dickinson School of Law in 2008.

University officials said this will increase convenience and safety for students.

The student parking lot will be closer to campus than Lot 83, located past Park Avenue near the Penn State Arboretum. Plans are also in the works to install better lighting in the area and add a bus stop to promote transportation.

To make up for the other 593 parking spots being lost in the construction, the State College Borough Council said 600 additional spaces would be created in an upcoming project in College Township. No details about the location or the timeline have been released for this project.

Penn State's effort to address the parking problem for students is a step in the right direction.

But it's only a start, and it needs to be improved.

In tearing down the Graduate Circle apartments and replacing them with a parking lot, the university is also ignoring another pressing student concern -- on-campus housing.

More than 1,200 students were denied housing contracts for next year because of the increase of freshman students, are officials sure they want to be demolishing housing in an attempt to allievate some on-campus parking problems? While on-campus parking is certainly a problem, the university also needs to be making adjustments so that it can house the students who will be using these parking spaces.

University officials have said they are "surprised" by the increase in the number of students who want to live on campus. But currently, they have no plans to increase the number of living facilities.

The large number of contract-less students seems to be a more pressing issue than the lack of parkable pavement. But when faced with this dilemma, the administration made the choice to replace only half of the spaces that will be lost because of construction.

Planning Commission member Elizabeth Toepfer said she was curious about why a decision had been made to create one large, flat parking area rather than building a parking garage that might provide even more parking spaces.

They console the students by saying they will build a parking lot, and not a high-rise parking garage, so as not to rule out any future residence halls at this site.

However, parking space advocates and homeless students both lose out -- 600 less spaces and no housing.

Updating University Park to meet the changing needs of its student is admirable.

All we ask is that Penn State officials make it known that they are working to address the on-campus housing shortage as they make decisions to tear down current student housing.