Whether you’re a student living on campus or a commuter, chances are you can relate to one of the following problems: you’ve driven around aimlessly to find a parking spot on campus. You’ve parked no short distance from the building that houses your class or the residence hall you live in. You’ve risked a ticket for the convenience of a close parking spot. You’ve complained to your friends about not finding parking.
Despite changes to the way Emporia State does parking–no more parking meters, paid passes or hikes from the free parking lot across the street from the Student Recreation Center–students continue to express trouble with the amount of parking available to them on campus. Even free parking seems to come at a cost.
“It’s the fact that we’re growing and increasing more as a college and stuff,” said Jeremiah Johnson, a resident living in the Towers complex. “And so kind of knowing that we’re getting more and more people every year, it would kind of make more sense to open up parking, but instead it’s more of, well if you can’t find parking call police and safety and let them know ‘hey, I’m at the open parking.’ and then at 7 a.m. move your car or you get a ticket.”
Student Olivia Busada described the process of finding a parking spot as “terrible.” They suggest that the gray parking lot adjacent from the Towers Complex be a half-gray half-green lot to accommodate students.
Through the tough parking, Busada says they’ve made up names for the poor parking situations they’ve been left to adapt to. The limited amount of parking for Towers Complex and Abigail Morse Hall has led students to adapt to surrounding parking, sometimes even parking that’s off campus.
“We’ve named some parking areas,” said Busada. “The one over by the practice fields, that’s Canada. We hate parking in Canada. And the fourth row (at Towers), that’s Missouri. It’s not as far as Canada, but it’s still a hike.
Student Blaze Bridges is no stranger to the longer walks that result from having to adapt to a lack of parking. Often, Bridges parks near the practice fields, by the Rec, instead of the Towers Complex parking lot. They say more green parking could improve parking standards on campus as well as more parking spots for students by classroom buildings.
The limited quantity of spots leads to quick fill ups of campus parking lots, one thing that could possibly get worse with growing enrollment numbers.
“A lot of it’s for faculty, and I feel like we need to have a little bit more for the students because there’s a lot more students than there’s faculty,” Bridges said.
But most faculty and staff members don’t have their own parking spaces; they are made to share parking with students in lots designated as gray parking. In the previous parking system, faculty and staff had their own lots, designated as orange lots, which were done away with after the current parking program was implemented.
Some faculty and staff do have specialized “gold” parking permits, which are approved by President Ken Hush. Faculty and staff with this designation can park in any of the parking spaces marked gold, which are often closest to buildings on campus.
Other students who spoke to The Bulletin described campus parking as “hard” and “tricky.” While two described the situation positively, saying it is “serviceable” and “pretty good,” students also commonly answered with the word “chaotic.”
Students living in Abigail Morse Hall often have to move their cars on football gamedays to a different lot to make room for tailgating and visitors. Other campus events take up available parking near Schallenkamp Hall, Abigail Morse and Science Hall, students said.
At the time of publication, the Office of Residential Life and the Parking Department were unavailable to speak with The Bulletin about student concerns.
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