Parking Problems

With the beginning of every new semester here at Concord comes the question that every student and faculty member dreads: where am I going to park?

    For the past three years at least, students and faculty here at Concord University have been dealing with a shortage of available parking on campus. It began, for students at least, the Fall of 2014, when Concord received a grant and began construction on various sidewalks around campus in order to make The Campus Beautiful more ADA compliant. Unfortunately, since then, the problem has not been resolved. If anything, the problem has gotten worse.

    “The biggest problem I believe is people parking where they shouldn’t and people who are unable to park within the lines of a space,” said senior Concord Student Joe Faidley, “A good solution would be for campus police to issue citations to the individuals who are in the wrong areas or taking up two spots. Make it clear on the parking passes that designates where people should park their automobiles.”

    Over past semesters it has been true that students with parking tags labeled specifically as “Women’s Housing”, “Men’s Housing”, “North”, “South”, or “Commuter” seemed to be unable to grasp the concept of parking in the lot assigned to them via their respective parking tags. But that problem is now a thing of the past. With the large influx of freshmen Concord received this year, Campus Security decided to revamp the parking tag system. Now, all tags simply read either “Resident” or “Commuter”. However, this hasn’t solved or cut down on the parking issue at all. A large part of the problem this semester is, with renovations going on at the Towers dorms, construction vehicles and supplies are now dominating a number of parking spaces on campus.

    Commuter student Matthew Wolf brought up another issue: “The majority of their parking is on the opposite end of the campus from the building that hosts the most classrooms,” he pointed out. His solution to the aforementioned problem is quite innovative. “It’d be nice to see some parking put in front of Rahall and beside University Point, but that may subtract from the “beauty” of the campus. So, best bet is probably to cut all the trees behind/beside University Point and fill that area in with fill dirt then widen the existing lot by stadium all the way up to University Point. That would easily double parking space and allow for handicap spaces,” he suggests.

    Another problem is the fact that there are simply too many cars on campus. With this semester bringing with in the largest freshmen class Concord has seen in years, that means an influx in the number of cars on campus. One simple solution to this problem is to do what many other college campuses across the United States do: ban students from having their own cars on campus until their sophomore year. Unfortunately, with Concord’s slightly isolated located and lack of public transportation, this solution might make people more upset than the parking problem itself.