According to Maryann Wiggin, Director of Public Safety, the number of vehicles on campus has risen steadily over the past several years. This semester 692 cars are registered on campus and that number will probably increase by 50 to 75 cars by the end of the academic year.
To accommodate the growing number of cars and as part of the development of the campus master plan, the University hired a parking consultant last year. Recommendations included new parking lots at Lawn Avenue and Pine Street and behind the Science Center, as well as expansion of the E lot at the Admissions Office. There will also be added parking at the Film Studies Center and Freeman Athletic Center. According to Wiggin, the overall increase will be about 300 parking spaces.
“Another theme of the master plan is to make a more pedestrian-friendly campus,” Wiggin said.
One controversial result of the parking consultant’s recommendation has been the restriction of freshman drivers to the Vine Street lot this year.
“I walk everywhere on campus because it’s so difficult to park,” said Charlie van der Poel ’07.
In spite of complaints about parking availability, students do not seem to mind the cost of student parking stickers, which are $50 and must be renewed each school year.
“I think [the fee] is really pretty decent. My brother goes to graduate school at MIT and it’s roughly $500 a year to park there,” van der Poel said.
114 first-year students have parking stickers, which leaves 578 upperclassmen with registered cars.
Many students bring cars to campus because of the close proximity to their hometowns.
“I live only 2 hours away, it’s convenient,” said Piotr Brzezinski ’07, who took his car with him from his home in Massachusetts.
It is quite another case for Serkan Parlak ’06 and Mark Liew ’06, international students from Turkey and Singapore, who share their car.
“Well, firstly I wanted to learn how to drive. I don’t have a car back in Turkey and I can’t learn to drive without a car,” Parlak said. “Another reason for me would be because I wanted to be able to get out of campus more easily. Visiting my friends nearby consumes too much time and money if I take the public transportation.”
While some student drivers have difficulty finding a parking spot on campus, they can generally bet that their cars will be undamaged; Public Safety car-related vandalism reports are quite infrequent. The last case of a car theft was in 2002, when two cars were reported stolen, one of which was a Stonehedge golf cart.
“Periodically there are students with motor vehicles whose windows were broken or smashed,” Wiggin said. “Vandalism goes in spurts. The first thing we set out to do is find the owner and see how long it has been parked. If we have Vine Street lot full of cars and one got broken into, we say, ‘Why that one car?’”
Clearly, the decision to bring a car to campus lies in the hands of the student.
“I don’t think it’s a necessity. But if it’s a convenience, then it works,” Brzezinski said.
Wiggins discourages students from bringing their cars to campus.
“I don’t think the vast majority of students who have cars need them for on campus purposes. I would recommend students bike or walk instead,” she said. “It’s one less thing to worry about.”
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