Parking for Commuters, Faculty, Staff Difficult to Find
Allyson Fogerty
Campus parking at Manchester University has been majorly impacted due to construction covering one of the main lots, just north of the Jo Young Switzer Center. While head of University Safety Tina Edwards has been diligently working on making the situation as easy as possible, many students still find it difficult to find parking spots to get to class on time.
Manchester University parking lots are separated by Resident Student Parking, Visitor Parking and Commuter and Faculty/ Staff Parking. Since the Lockie and Augustua Chinworth Center began construction, one of the main Commuter Student and Faculty/Staff parking lots has been cut off and is mostly used as parking for the construction workers, with one small strip available to early arrivals. Students, faculty and staff are now forced to venture farther around campus to find parking.
Desiree Blum, a thirdyear commuter student who has most of her classes in the Science Center, says that instead of being able to park in the lot behind the building where she can get to class the fastest, she now must park farther away, and even at times, on the other side of campus, because of the increased competition for spaces.
Not being able to find parking not only affects students, but also faculty and staff. Scott DeVries, a third-year Spanish professor who commutes to campus from Mishawaka, Ind., finds that this year parking is especially difficult for him as his normal parking spot across from the Academic Center is no longer available. On one of his first days back on campus for the school year, DeVries had to drive around searching for a place to park. He says that because he commutes from so far, anything can happen, like a train stopped on the tracks.
“I need to be sure that I can find a space where I know there will be space,” he said.
DeVries believes that an open, general parking area where individuals with certain colored parking decals can park when the other spaces are full, would be a nice guarantee of parking where you will not get in trouble, even if it means a bit further of a walk.
Edwards, head of Campus Safety, said that she is doing all that to make parking this year easier for students, faculty and staff. When Edwards receives emails from students stating they cannot find a place to park, she goes out in real time to count the spots she can find on the lots to help them find a place.