(Brian Brenize -- The Beacon)
By Natalie Wheeler, Staff Writer -- wheelern12@up.edu
With the possibility of a parking garage on the River Campus a decade away or so, UP continues to struggle with a parking shortage.
For now, three new 30-minute parking spots have been added near the Pilot House in an attempt to accommodate the growing number of visitors to campus.
Seniors Katie Scally, ASUP vice president, and Colin Dowart, ASUP president, petitioned Public Safety to add the new spots.
Scally said she thought of the idea after hearing from constituents about the parking problems.
"Our whole theme during our campaign was, ‘What do you want us to do?' and the number one thing we got was parking," Scally said.
During the summer, Scally e-mailed Public Safety asking for one or two spots. She was pleasantly surprised when Public Safety decided to add three new spots.
However, Scally doubts that this will make much of an impact on the overall parking problem.
According to Institutional Research, UP has over 3,800 students, plus faculty and staff. Public Safety's records list only 1,736 total parking spots on the UP campus and 800 general parking permits.
The new parking spots will save visitors who do not have a parking permit and who are here for fewer than 30 minutes, a trip to to Public Safety for a parking pass. Despite the growing disparity between the number of cars and spaces, Harold Burke-Sivers, director of Public Safety, thinks that this will lead to less frustration for many visitors.
"People are in a hurry and they forget to get a parking pass, then they get a ticket," Burke-Sivers said. "Once people know about it, this should help a lot."
