Jen BoudevinBy Jen Boudevin
mustang daily
As a new school year begins, many students are facing a familiar struggle when it comes to finding parking on campus, yet the University Police Department is looking into some changes for the future.
Stalking any backpack-toting student for a potentially available spot, drivers circle the lots with fingers crossed and high hopes of making it to class on time.
While commuters jam the aisles of the structure and G-1 surface lot, many R-2 residential spaces remain open.
Eran Tal, a sixth-year Cal Poly student, has parked in the Grand Avenue lots throughout his academic career, and cites this as the worst parking situation he has seen on campus.
“This is especially frustrating since non-residents who paid $255 for their parking passes cannot park in the over 100 residential spots that are left empty all day,” Tal said.
Cindy Campbell, associate director of UPD, is aware of the dilemma, and efforts to combat the issue are being discussed.
“We are looking at how we might be able to offer some of the open residential spaces without overfilling a restricted lot,” she said.
Just under 90 percent of the available spaces in the R-2 lot have been sold to incoming residential students, and statistics from previous years anticipate they will sell out by the beginning of the winter quarter.
“The parking situation on campus seems to be getting worse every year,” graphic communication junior Erin Bradley said. “And what makes it even more frustrating are the open spots you see in residential and faculty lots.”
UPD is awaiting an updated residential sales report and hopes to be able to determine the feasibility of change to the area some time this week.
While possible changes to the Grand Avenue lots are discussed, students are encouraged to take note of other commuter lots on campus, specifically H-12, H-14, H-16 and H-1.
“None of these lots have filled to capacity since the beginning of the quarter,” Campbell said. “This is encouraging, as there have been previous years when these lots were filled to capacity at the 10 a.m. survey on certain days of the week.”
The University Police Department will continue to monitor available spaces around campus, and results of its daily parking space count as well as other parking statistics will be available on their Web site at www.afd.calpoly.edu/police. Students with questions or ideas regarding campus parking may e-mail parking@calpoly.edu.