WHERE’S MY CAR?

where’s my car?TRENDING TOPICS New Changes to Parking Policy

WRITTEN BY KAYLEE GETZ DESIGNED BY ISABELLA KERN

Messiah University administrators have made the decision to allow more students to park on campus than was previously permitted. Now, all student parking lots are currently full, and some upperclassmen have parking permits for the farthest parking lots from the central part of campus.

Until this fall, first year students were only permitted to park on campus if they met certain criteria related to where they lived, if they worked, and if they had any medical reasons to need a car. Currently, all first year students who had requested to park on campus have received a parking permit.

Typically, upperclassmen are given a lottery slot based on current credits. This year, first year students were also given a lottery slot based on when they paid their deposits. Although the first year lottery slots were after the upperclassmen slots, some upperclassmen missed their sign-up time, and first year students filled many of the parking lots before them.

Those upperclassmen who forgot to register their car ahead of time were pushed to some of the farthest parking lots. Some were even moved around in temporary spots for a while.

Kathie Shafer, Messiah’s vice president for operations, explains why the criteria allowing first-year students to park on campus changed.

“Admissions hears often from families that their son or daughter doesn’t meet the criteria for parking on campus but that they need a car,” Shafer said. “In the last couple years, as our enrollment has gone down at Messiah, we’ve had parking spaces available.”

Messiah administrators decided to open these extra parking spaces to first year students. “I biked from TR to Fry a couple times,” Gerard said. “I bike a lot, but it still felt pretty far.”

Gerard does not eat on campus due to dietary restrictions, so he leaves campus to go grocery shopping regularly. Walking the whole way to TR lot and back on a regular basis was becoming too much, so he requested to have his parking spot switched.

“I emailed P-Safety and told them I have food restrictions and can’t eat the food served at Messiah without deleterious consequences, and so I need to go shopping to sustain myself,” Gerard said.

Gerard’s parking spot was then moved from TR lot to B lot in the pit where he is currently parked.

Jack Daudt, a senior studio arts major, was in a similar situation. He was originally given a parking permit for the Milo lot.

“When my car was in the Milo lot I did not use it once,” Daudt said. “I had to share my brother’s car. However, this was a challenge because he used it frequently for clinicals.”

Daudt also had his parking permit switched a few weeks into the semester. Some students who registered to park on campus did not claim their parking permits, so they were given to other students. This is what happened to Daudt, who ended up getting to park in lot F which is much closer to the central part of campus.

“Last fall, we spent a lot of time assessing our parking,” Shafer said. “We looked at how many upperclassmen brought cars historically and how that correlated to the available parking spaces. Then we estimated how many spaces we could make available to first year students.”

First year students were able to register their vehicles, and there were even a few students who showed up at the beginning of the semester with cars who didn’t register them ahead of time and still got a parking spot. Initially, some students were placed in temporary spots, but now everyone who has parking permits has them for an assigned lot.

At this point in the semester, parking spots are on a waiting list. At the end of this semester, some students will be graduating or transferring out, and some parking spots are expected to open up.

Jonathan Gerard, a junior business administration major, was originally given a parking spot in the TR lot on the other side of the baseball field. The new parking protocols are going to continue through the rest of this academic year and through at least the end of next year. Messiah administration will look at data at the end of next academic year to decide whether these new parking protocols will continue or not.

“In our President’s Cabinet, we have made a commitment to do parking like we did this year for one more year,” Shafer said. “One year is not good data, so we want to do a second year. If our enrollment continues to grow, then we’ll have to revisit that.”

PHOTOS BY TYLER CARUSO