Since my first semester at Illinois Wesleyan, parking has always been difficult for me and other students whom I spoke with about the problem. The parking lot in Funsell was always full, the street between Pfeiffer and Gullick was always booked, and the parking lot in Gullick was not available for students. It is frustrating because walking across campus from the Ames parking lot during the fall may be fine, but once the weather got colder, it surely was annoying.
Whenever you try to go somewhere, you have to see if it is “that” time of the week when people don’t fight over each other for a parking spot. During the weekend, students who live relatively close to campus go home and leave empty spots for those who stayed and wanted to go somewhere. By the end of the weekend, though, it’s survival of the fittest to find a spot for your car again. It may sound silly and unserious to many people, however, I started to notice that students are not the only ones who experience this parking problem.
So far, I’ve talked to three faculty members who experienced the same problem. The faculty-reserved parking lots were packed on some days and they had to park in Ames. This tells me that reserving parking lots for faculty doesn’t help with the parking situation. Faculty and students have less space to park since these lots are reserved for faculty in the morning.
As everyone is aware, the school admitted about 500 students this academic year. In my opinion, if the school was committed to “welcome a robust class of new Titans” and improve the student residential experience – then it would be focused on making basic resources like parking more accessible to the Titan community. If the university is going to continue growing, then these issues need to be addressed now before it becomes even more out of hand. I understand that the campus is built inside a neighborhood and has been having problems with gaining more space to extend the campus. One of the solutions I can think of is to be mindful of the upcoming class size in order to accommodate the residential needs such as parking access.