The shrinking number of student parking spaces located close to dormitories or near campus has not been well-received by the student population. The location of parking lots, the number of faculty and staff spaces and the vagueness of parking regulations are common subjects in daily student conversation.
The lack of distinct signs that note when students can or cannot park in faculty and staff spaces, has also been a cause for complaint. "The policy on weekend parking in faculty lots is unclear," said Ashish Bhatt '07. "Most students do not know what that policy is or the police give an unclear answer."
According to Communication and Parking Supervisor Michael Abbatessa, there are only 540 student parking spaces on campus while the number of cars registered with student permits usually trends around 600. Only 396 permits have been issued so far this year, and many students who hold permits do not always have their cars on campus. Comparatively, there are 672 faculty and staff spaces for 3,486 registered faculty and staff vehicles-more than one permit may be issued per faculty member.
Safety concerns arise when students come home late at night, unable to find parking behind their dorms or in the Tennis Court Parking Lot, and must park in the O'Connell or Hills Lots, located adjacent to the train tracks. While Safe Rides are always available, the wait in the cold or in a deserted parking lot can be unsafe and risky.
Another common complaint from students is the rising conversion of student parking to faculty parking. According to the Director of Facilities Planning & Management Jim Brassord, both student and faculty parking have been reallocated to different lots, due to increased construction. One example is how the construction on the Hamilton and Porter Houses requires a dedicated area in the Alumni Lot for contractor work, leading to the abolition of student parking in the lot.
Although the Student Handbook and the Campus Police Web site clearly specify the rules and regulations regarding campus parking, the inconvenience of accessing this information while searching for parking has discouraged students from using the handbook.
The fine for parking in a faculty spot is $15 and is considered in the type of "Violation A." However, the most common parking violations are "Violation C," which cover vehicles parked on the upper campus, handicapped parking violations, the failure to stop on the signal of a police officer and operating a vehicle in an unsafe manner.
Last year, the Campus Police issued 4,637 parking tickets, amounting to a total of $35,885 in fines. In addition, 119 vehicles were on the Boot List last year, with roughly 64 of those vehicles registered to students.
The use of tennis courts as temporary parking lots has also raised concerns. Oil leakage from cars is known to damage the tennis courts. While the tennis courts are reconditioned and repainted at the end of each school year, it is clear that their usage as car spaces is damaging athletic and recreational space.
According to Brassord, the upper tennis courts were originally dedicated to student parking in 2004 when the construction of the Earth Sciences building eliminated approximately 100 spaces from student, faculty and staff parking. The tennis courts provided 160 new spaces that are allocated for student parking.
Brassord explained that the tennis courts were initially designated by a parking committee to house parking overflow, since it is adjacent to the temporary student housing in the Plaza and Waldorf Dormitories. When construction on other campus housing is completed and can fully eliminate the need for the temporary student housing, a parking lot will be built in place of these dorms, equivalent to the capacity of the tennis court lot. This project, however, will not be completed for another three to four years.
The College previously created new parking spaces to accomodate for the loss of original parking areas. "We have ample parking for our student needs at this time, I think if people adhere to the rules we will be in fine shape," said Abbatessa.
Some students, however, argue that other solutions need to be created. "The answer is not more parking lots," Samuel Guzzardi '07 said. "We need to be focusing on new strategies for dealing with the parking situation because there are just too many cars on this campus. The number of cars is excessive."