Alina Rosenkranz |
With a growing student population and the removal of 82 parking spots, on-campus parking has become hard to find for some students, staff, faculty and visitors. The University will build a new parking lot on the River Campus this fall to accommodate for the shortage.
Andrew Bosomworth, ASUP Senator and oversight special committee chair, stressed the urgency of new parking options.
“We have this gigantic incoming freshmen class, we already don’t have enough parking spots and now we lost parking spots,” Bosomworth said. “The incoming freshmen class, once they are sophomores, they are allowed to have cars and a lot of them do bring cars. Now we are going to have 200-300 more cars than we used to. What do we do?”
The University plans to build 120-150 new parking spots down on the River Campus, according to Jim Ravelli, vice president for university operations. Aside from Riverboat, a Student Activities event held last month, this will be the first time the River Campus is open to students.
The exact start and end dates for construction are not set because the University is still waiting for the City of Portland to approve the infrastructural and landscaping details for the parking lot. But Ravelli expects the construction to start late fall.
“The construction on campus, with the Rec Center, with the taking of the parking that is along Holy Cross Court, while it’s temporary, it has been inconvenient for folks,” Ravelli said. “It has been tougher for folks to find parking. We absolutely recognize that.”
UP students have mixed opinions of the current campus parking situation. Anthony Nguyen, a junior biology major, commutes and doesn’t have too much trouble finding parking.
“The parking situation is okay, it just depends on what time you get here. If you get here after 9 a.m. then it’s pretty bad,” he said.
But Shashana Packus, a senior global business major, also commutes, and said it’s become more difficult to find parking since her freshman year.
“UP is growing in the number of students, but the parking hasn’t, and so there is not enough of it,” Packus said. “And so you circle around trying to find a spot and it takes 20 minutes.”
Once the Wellness Center is built, the University wants to reclaim 20 parking spots and add 20 parking spots on the bluff behind Corrado, bringing the University to a net gain of about 100 spots.
Because the River Campus is far from the center of campus, Ravelli said the University will also provide a shuttle service to and from River Campus to access the 120-150 parking spots once they are built.
Alina Rosenkranz is a reporter for The Beacon. You can reach her at rosenkra17@up.edu.
