Put it in park, EKU
“Parking is a privilege, not a right that students have.”
For many EKU students, that statement from Director of public safety Bryan Makinen rings true. There is no better feeling than finding a spot close to your dorm so you don’t have to walk far in the frigid cold late in the fall semester or early in the spring semester.
However, students, in their haste to grab a good parking, forget where they are parking. The top complaints from students are the lack of parking and the citations that are handed out to student populace for improper parking.
There are many different reasons to get a citation from EKU parking. Some of the most common reasons are parking out of zone, parking in a zone at the incorrect time and parking in a fire lane.
4,657 citations were handed out during the 2018/2019 academic year at EKU, the majority of which were due to being parked out of the correct zone.
EKU students have pointed out that despite the assertion that there is a spot for every EKU student on campus, the majority of those spots are not central to campus but rather on the outskirts in places like the Alumni Coliseum lot or the parking garage behind the New Science Building.
Bryan Makinen understands the student frustration but also wants to keep the traffic on campus low.
“We have to balance between having a campus environment with vehicles or a campus environment with pedestrians. If we added more parking to the heart of campus, it’ll complicate traffic even more especially on Kit Carson Drive.”
Junior student Alexander Karbasch has found himself frustrated with EKU parking due to his commuter status.
“There seems to never be enough parking spots on campus. As a commuter, I have to leave my house extra early before my classes as it often takes me extra time to find a parking spot.”
Despite these complaints about the lack of parking spaces, Bryan Makinen contests these complaints.
“We’ve added 2.500 spots since 2017. A few years ago, the Alumni Coliseum lot was full. Now, it’s only about a fourth filled up.”
EKU recently changed its entire parking system, changing from manual tickets and hang tags to an electronic database where you register your vehicle’s license plate when you fill out the housing paperwork.
Makinen said that some lots, like Grand Campus, are now Geo-Cached and he raised the possibility of assigning personal spots to each student.
This new system is called NuPark and everything from registration to citations are now electronic. However, the concern about electronic citations does have some students concerned as they now may not know if they were improperly parked since they no longer will receive a paper ticket.
When asked why the change to paperless tickets, Makinen responded, “We still could hand out paper citations, but we want to not waste paper and resources.”
EKU has tried to curb some anguish with the parking complaints by changing the Grand Campus lot to only Grand Campus residents which has drawn some backfire. EKU has also changed the Lancaster lot from a commuter lot to a residential lot and faculty lot.
In the spring semester of 2019, a flyer from EKU Parking was posted to Twitter by an EKU student. On this flyer were changes to the parking system which included no backing in and no pulling through to spots. A mini revolution took place on twitter by EKU students who were enraged by these proposed changes.
EKU Parking rolled back on these changes and issued an email to students which told the population that these changes were no longer in effect.
Parking at universities has never been an easy task and EKU is no different from any other university. EKU Parking has tried to fix issues in the past but has been an uproar from the student population. Hopefully, in the near future this rift between an EKU service and its student body can come together and find a solution that fits both parties.