One of the pressing issues that juniors, seniors and commuter students have been facing both last semester and during the beginning of this semester have been the amount of parking on campus and related violations being given out to students.
With the new parking garage in place near Alumni Hall and the Aloysius P. Kelley Center, 380 new spaces have been offered on campus to those with green commuter stickers on their cars, as well as for admissions visitors and sporting events; however, the ticketing issue seems to be on the minds of students.
One commuter student, Patrick Setiadi ‘20, said that, “As a sophomore commuter, there’s definitely benefits for not living on campus. I get to have a car on campus as a full-time undergraduate compared to my resident sophomore friends that can’t. The only negative side to this is that the parking is terrible.”
Setiadi went on to say that, “The new parking garage has helped slightly in increasing parking space, but closing down the parking lot near the library and across DSB [Dolan School of Business] definitely has made the situation much worse.”
Assistant Director of DPS John Ritchie stated that it is not necessarily the case that there has been an increase in efforts on the part of Public Safety to crack down on parking violations, but felt as though there is a fairly consistent ticket output over the years.
He said, “I wouldn’t say there’s been an increase. I think we’re just at a constant plateau of violations.”
In regards to the new parking garage that was installed last semester and how it is potentially affecting the amount of tickets being given, Ritchie felt as though, “I think it’s still too early to tell. In the first couple weeks it was open, it was underutilized and people were unsure about who was allowed to park there.”
He went on to mention how it has alleviated some parking for athletic events such as basketball games and noted the convenience of its central location near Alumni Hall.
With the construction of the new Dolan School of Business, one concern is that the parking issue on campus will become more prevalent in terms of ticketing, since students would be competing for fewer spots. This would be the case because the parking lot near the library was removed as a result of the project.
Senior Izabella Guzzo, who commutes from the beach, stated that, “The parking garage has been a great asset to our campus since it has made getting to the gym and classes in Bannow much easier, however losing the library parking lot has been an inconvenience since it has made late night studying less ideal for students off campus.”
Another beach resident, Beth McDonough ‘18, said that, “I think the parking has gotten better since the parking garage was built. It is harder to park near DSB because of the construction, but it’s more of a hassle driving through campus sometimes because of it.”
However, Ritchie assured students that, “the lot behind the Quick Center, where the new school of business construction zone is, was only about 89 parking spaces. If you were able to park in that lot behind the Quick Center, you were a commuter student. Now the new parking garage is also commuter green sticker, so it’s a little bit further of a walk, I agree, but it’s not some unreasonable distance.”
He added that what is going on at this point is essentially a game of patience. Ritchie noted that, “when the new school of business does open, it will come with a new parking lot ⎯ we just have to be patient. We can’t get better if we don’t allow ourselves this opportunity to put up with a little annoyance, because the end result is gonna be so much more significant.”
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