Officials say there is not enough demand to increase parking on campus.
“If we go strictly by the numbers, parking on campus is adequate,” said Bob Zavada, Associate Director of Campus Safety.
Zavada admits parking can be hard to find at times.
“It’s tight at times. That’s for sure. I have encountered it myself. Parking is tight on particular days.”
Zavada said a lot of students are reluctant to use the shuttle from Passan Hall to Upper Campus because they have to schedule their days according to the shuttle times. This might cause students to arrive on campus as much as 30 minutes before their classes start.
Some students think parking should be expanded because of the growth of admitted students this year.
Junior Daniella DeVivo said she has had difficulty finding parking, and she feels unsafe when she cannot find a spot near her dorm.
“Every time I come back from home or I just go out with my friends, it takes forever to find a parking spot. Sometimes there is only parking down by Anderson, and if it is dark out I don’t want to walk by myself all the way across campus. I wouldn’t feel safe,” said DeVivo.
DeVivo said the university is expanding the number of enrolled students and so parking should be increased to accommodate those students.
DeVivo suggested that the university build a parking garage on one of the larger lots. “Misericordia is always saying that they don’t have enough room, but if they just turn one of the bigger parking lots into a parking garage, then it wouldn’t be taking up any more additional space and there would be enough parking spots for everyone and then some,” said DeVivo.
Zavada said that there is not enough green space left on campus. He said the new football stadium was the last of the green space, and even space for the field was limited.
Zavada also said if there were space, the university would have to explore environmental regulations, so any project would take time to plan.
“It’s not as easy as saying, ‘We are going to pave over an area.’ You can’t make an adequate area on a field just because you feel like doing it,” he said.
Zavada said Campus Safety does not plan to allow sophomores to have vehicles on campus. Zavada said the idea has been suggested. He said careful planning on the part of students would alleviate parking woes.
“I think proper planning would avoid some of that, if people got more accustomed to the option of taking the shuttle,” said Zavada.
Zavada noted that a source of parking problems is students who do not follow policy and register vehicles, and he said Campus Safety will become more strict in enforcing the rules.
“People may come up here as a freshmen and say ‘Oh I’m just not going to register my vehicle and I am just going to park it unlawfully against university rules,’” said Zavada.
Zavada said people do tend to bring their cars on campus when they should not, and students who violate the campus’s parking rules and restrictions face fines or the possibility of having their vehicles towed at the their expense.
Campus Safety grants temporary parking permits to students who are prohibited from having cars on campus and need them for a defined period of time.