Students who commute to campus may have to get used to a new parking routine as the upcoming Swan Annex project will claim 107 parking spaces in Lot 2.
According to Michael Hughes, the associate vice president of Physical Plant, these spots will be made up for with the upcoming parking Lot 17 construction.
“The parking Lot 17 expansion is the first phase of the Swan Annex project. The goal is to have the expanded Lot 17 open for use by mid-November 2016, before we take any parking off-line in lot 2,” Hughes said.
Parking issues are a frequent topic of frustration among students but Director of the Department of Public Safety (DPS) Bruce Borkovich says that the number of parking tickets has gone down. From July to the end of September, this year compared to last, 329 less parking tickets have been written.
“The goal is to write less tickets by educating people on parking,” Borkovich said.
Public safety employees have been instructed to give better instruction on where students can and cannot park but some students still have issues.
“It’s extremely difficult to find parking if I don’t want to walk ten or more blocks to get to class,” said Ferris psychology senior Emily Haight.
DPS has suggested that students might find it beneficial to park in the commuter lots on the west side of campus, such as Lot 19 or Lot 55, either walk or take the shuttle to the academic buildings on the other side of State Street.
“Ferris should lower the price of a parking pass for commuters. On top of the cost of gas to commute to school, the parking pass rates are outrageous. Ferris should also introduce more commuter parking, as they need to take into consideration the fact that many of their students do commute,” Haight said.
While for many students parking is a daily struggle, others find the issues with Ferris’ commuter parking to be dependent on a lot of factors, like the time of day. Jeff Ford, an applied mathematics senior, commutes every day from Venlo Place apartments.
“Because I normally get on campus at 9 a.m., I have no issues with parking. If I ever get to campus after 9:30 though, I have significant problems finding a spot remotely close to my academic building,” Ford said.
Ford added that he feels some of the parking stress would be alleviated if faculty and staff were not allowed to park in commuter lots and the number of commuter lots were increased.
The Swan Annex project is projected to be completed by August of 2018, just in time for the fall semester of that year.