By Alyssa Kornacki, News Reporter
At the beginning of the semester, due to the impact of the storm and parking capacity, the Office of Business and Finance decided to change up the parking plan, and commuters all over campus were affected.
Previously, faculty and staff often parked at the Main-Jefferson lot next to Science Hall. This lot has been converted to approximately 11 spaces for use by Admissions. Admissions is temporarily working out of Science Hall, and it is important that prospective students have parking near where Admissions is located.
Public Safety will now allow residents to park in the Loring lot next to Bosch Hall; to the extent that the Loring lot has space available, commuter students can park there during the day. Resident students were previously able to park in the ramp, and opening the Loring lot to residents provided some parking close to the residence halls on the main campus. However, since the beginning of the second semester, it can be noted that most of the cars parked in the lot have piles of snow on them from sitting in the same spot for weeks, due to resident students not moving their cars. This continues to block resident students who commute to jobs off campus and commuters from parking in these locations.
An additional issue that has been noted by the Office of Business and Finance was illegal parking-pass production. Public Safety has been hot on the heels of offenders who have parked in an incorrect lot or cars that sport faulty tags. The $40 parking tickets rack up quickly!
Some students prefer seeking out a street parking space instead of fighting for a spot. Mylan Hawkins, a senior, walked out to her car one day to find a ticket on her car on Hughes Avenue because she was covering a portion of the sidewalk. Another undergraduate student shared his story of walking out to his car and finding a parking ticket on his car for parking in a commuter lot as a resident for several days on accident due to winter weather. Several students expressed their frustrations to The Griffin, having walked out to their cars and found tickets.
With all these parking updates and the continued struggle to find a spot among faculty, staff, commuters and residents alike, you might be asking yourself, “When is the parking lot going to be finished? Why are there still large tanks and equipment on a patch of gravel that is meant to be our new surface lot?” Unfortunately, although the blizzard didn’t delay production, frequent cold temperatures can contribute to delays in working on the lot. It seems that even Peter Canisius himself can’t stop the cold Buffalo weather from coming in and delaying our new parking plan. Budget extra time for parking on campus and have patience. The parking struggles too shall pass.