Dealing with issues involving parking is a staple of the beginning of the school year, and 2012 has been no different.
From having to park in the O lot, to having to park in the split lot (or deep sea), to the inability to gain passes to park close to where students are going, the ever-cramped parking situation is on the minds of many.
This year, Residence Life has opened up multiple properties purchased by Capital along Sheridan Avenue.
After moving students in, they then had to decide how to allow these students to park.
Large-scale parking such as lots on campus or at the commons and apartments wasn’t realistic due to the fact that all of these properties are so spread out. The solution, residence life decided, was individual D lots at each of the new residences.
Many students, however, are upset that they have to pay to park in their own driveway.
Some houses provide only two parking spots for four or more people living in them.
This forces some of the residents to move their cars to the Commons the Apartments, which are already severely congested this year despite the Commons adding many new parking spaces.
Public Safety enforces all parking lots, and has had many issues with the parking situation as well.
“It’s an issue between two different departments,” said Byron Anderson, Assistant Coordinator of Public Safety. “I think the perception that students have is that it’s a house.”
“People think they’ve rented that house, but you’ve really been assigned a room in the house and the parking still belongs to Public Safety. Our idea is still to build as much parking as possible.”
To combat the lack of parking, Public Safety worked with facilities to try and come up with a solution.
The outcome was making bigger gravel driveways in some backyards that had large flat areas next to existing parking options.
Unfortunately, the city of Bexley had a different idea.
According to Anderson, Bexley told Public Safety, “you can only put gravel where gravel exists.”
When Public Safety then proposed the idea of putting in blacktop, a slightly more expensive option, Bexley expressed concerns about run-off into Alum Creek.
The problem seems to be the convoluted bureaucratic system.
While Capital has Residence Life coordinating with maintenance, who is overseen by Public Safety, all of these departments must follow the codes and guidelines laid out for them by Bexley, which is notoriously strict on Capital’s movements.
Regardless of the system, many students are still upset about the situation.
Kristen Schlatter, a senior and resident of a new duplex on Sheridan, shares two parking spots with her three other roommates, along with the four other people living in the duplex next to them.
Shlatter said she is upset over the fact that she will have to park at the Commons down the road after work and then walk back to her duplex.
“It’s a safety issue,” she said. “I work second shift at St. Vincent Family Center and I don’t get off until midnight, and if I have to park in the D lot, I’m going to have to walk back by myself because I’m not going to call and wake up my roommates.”
Audrey Chrisman lives across the road from Shlatter, and shares many of the same concerns, citing the recent robbery at Bexley Village and the attempted abduction at the fountains.
“You have 8 girls living in a duplex and only four parking spaces, but oh hey, you can park at the Commons which is three blocks away,” she said.
“I’m sorry, but if someone got robbed at gunpoint and some girl almost got kidnapped, if I’m getting off work at midnight I’m not trying to walk back from the commons by myself.”
Many students were surprised to find any regulations on parking at all, as maintenance installed parking spots just over a week before students moved in.
Many are making do by prioritizing who parks where, allowing students who have jobs off campus to be able to leave from the congested parking lots, but issues of space still remain.
One route that many in these houses have taken is purchasing an S pass so they can park either at the College Avenue, or in the lot behind Public Safety.
Public Safety isn’t having it, however.
“We had a problem in the past with people who lived right across the street getting into their cars and driving to the Cap Center, and they were clogging up the lots,” Anderson said.
“We’ve got enough parking problems as it is. If you live that close, walk to school. If the little kids can walk to school, then you can too.”
Public Safety has set a rule that if a person lives within a half mile of Yochum, they are not permitted to get S passes.
Their reasoning is that that is the distance to the furthest S lot spot on campus, which Anderson notes is only really .3 miles.
Anderson also claims that by creating these D lots they have opened approximately 80 new spots in campus lots from last year.
Interim director of Public Safety Frank Fernandez also offered another reason why students are having issues with parking.
“I think this is such a big issue now because Sheridan is no parking,” he said.
Since construction started on College Avenue back in May, Bexley has not allowed the usual parking on the side of the street that is usually seen down Sheridan.
“When that opens up next year, you won’t have to buy a parking pass, you can just park on the street. And that’ll open up a lot more options for students,” Fernandez said.
