The price of Capital’s parking passes has increased by $25 in the past two years, making many students believe that buying a pass may not be worth it. Public safety and others hope that this increase will lower the number of students buying passes, opening them to people who drive their cars frequently.
Chief Fernandez in the Public Safety department discussed that there is not much space in the city of Bexley, so the university only has 1,600 parking spots in total. With 1,700 students living on campus and also factoring in commuters, faculty, vendors and guests, this makes for a tight fit.
A lot of the spaces are sold to students, but these permits do not necessarily guarantee a spot. Public Safety helps as much as they can with getting students a spot on campus as long as the vehicle is registered properly.
Parking in the O Lot can be especially frustrating; first-years as well as several sophomores have found themselves in an O lot parking space for the school year.
Jennifer Ryan, a first-year on campus, has found that parking her car and getting to it on the weekends is a hassle.
“The fact that you depend on the shuttle schedule makes it hard,” Ryan said.
The O Lot shuttle is set to run every 15 minutes to take students to their cars Monday through Friday. Students are often frustrated with the fact that this shuttle does not run on Saturdays, when many of them would like to get their cars for the weekend.
Even if students do not take the shuttle, getting into the parking lot itself requires a maintenance worker’s key.
“It’s not even far away, it’s that you can’t open it yourself. … If you could swipe your ID to get in, that would be perfect,” Ryan said.
Many students think it is a necessity to have cars on campus and end up using them only a handful of times every semester, making it harder for those who use their spaces every day to get a spot.
“The goal is to make it easier for students who drive back and forth to campus every day,” said Fernandez.
Fernandez mentioned that many students could be utilizing Car2Go or the new COTA bus program implemented on campus, or could carpool with friends who have brought cars to campus.
“If Student Government makes some suggestions about increasing the price … maybe that will encourage students to carpool … or stay on campus without a car if they don’t use their cars as much,” Fernandez said.
Parking is an issue at all college campuses in the Columbus area. While Otterbein and Dennison Universities have similar pricing on their passes, Ohio State charges anywhere from $300 to $700 for a parking pass.
With this new price increase, however, Fernandez has said that the number of parking passes bought has gone down.
This will mean that a lot of students are more likely to get a spot and that many students will be able to park in a more convenient lot.
Although Public Safety works as much as they can with the current parking provided, any new plans of parking will have to fit in the university budget and then be approved by the city of Bexley itself.
There are no current plans for the addition of new parking lots on campus for students, so many will have to decide if the increasing price is worth it or if they would be better off using public transportation.
