Source: The Xavierite Staff
Picture this: you have a class at 10am at Saint Xavier University. Being a good student, you leave your house with time to spare, and by the time you pull into the parking lot, you have 20 minutes before your class actually begins.
Next thing you know, you begin to look for parking only to find that every spot has been filled. You circle around, wasting time until you find a spot, and by then, it’s 10:15am, and you have already missed a chunk of your class.
It might seem ridiculous and over exaggerated, but unfortunately, this is a situation that many commuter students know all too well. From a shortage of parking spots to dealing with students who altogether do not know how to park, Saint Xavier has a large problem providing parking spots despite the university being made up of mostly commuter students.
One of the most pressing issues regarding parking is the small and compressed size of the parking spaces on campus.
The compact spaces that drivers have to squeeze their cars into hints to the horrific amount of bad parking jobs seen on campus.
The other big issue with parking stems from the amount of awful parking jobs seen on campus. While some of these bad parking jobs are due to the lack of space, some are due to pure idiocracy.
During my three years at Saint Xavier, I have seen multiple cars take up two parking spots; exactly where the center of their car is directly above the yellow line separating two distinct spots.
When it comes to cars that are slightly over the yellow line or parked diagonally, I lost track of how many of those I had seen by my second week on campus.
Hamiley Truty, a first-year student at Saint Xavier, shared a time she was impacted by others’ bad parking. “I was late for class one day and I was trying to find parking, and this ****** double parked, and when I told Public Safety, all they said was ‘Maybe you should get here on time.”’
Between the lack of punishment for bad and obtrusive parking on campus, and the incredibly small and limited spots, one begins to wonder why, despite commuters making up the majority of the school’s population, there is little done to make their on campus experience better.
Cassidy Dawson ‘25 has also had her fair share of terrible parking experiences on campus. Despite having a commute that should usually take only 10-15 minutes, “Depending on the time of day, it has taken [her] up to 30 minutes to find a parking spot before.”
All students, no matter whether they are commuters or residents, have an immense amount of work to get through while they are on campus.
For commuters, there should not have to be such a high added amount of stress linked to finding parking. Some students have much longer commutes, and having to add an extra 20-30 minutes to that commute just to find parking is ridiculous.
Sometimes, the parking problems don’t end once a student parks their car and goes into class. Sometimes, the parking problems start when a student is trying to leave.
Dawson shared her parking horror story with me, “There was one time I was parked like a normal person between the lines and someone parked over the line next to my driver side door. I tried to slide through, but I just could not.”
Dawson continued, “Normally, I would just slide through my passenger side door but someone else parked over the line too. I was left with no choice but to crawl through my trunk to get into my car.”
Parking at Saint Xavier is truly a disaster in itself. Between morons who never learned how to properly park, and spaces fit for a Little Tikes Cozy Coupe, it is no wonder that commuter students try to be in and out of Saint Xavier as quickly as possible.
Many student organizations complain that it is very hard to keep the commuter community engaged, and I believe that attempting to solve the parking problem would be a good start in being more inclusive of our largest student population on campus.
A great way to begin combating this problem would be to give out parking tickets to the students who take up multiple spots.
In the meantime, Arlene Silva, class of ‘25 and Vice President of the Student Government Association shares her piece of advice to commuter students, “I definitely think time plays a role in finding good parking.”
Silva continued, “When I had an 8am class, it was easy to find parking. But for 10am-12pm classes, I know I have to come 30 minutes early to make it on time to class.”
As a commuter myself, I suggest becoming very familiar with your schedule, and then incorporating parking time into that schedule. Lastly, if you think your precious car deserves two parking spots, maybe reevaluate yourself. Godspeed, commuters.
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