Lot 19 located in Mowatt Lane Garage.
Students assigned to Lot 19 in Mowatt Lane Garage said they’ve been repeatedly faced with full rows after DOTS reassigned several floors to faculty, staff and commuters this fall.
The Department of Transportation Services regularly overbooks parking, selling approximately 1.1 permits for every space available, said the department’s assistant director Beverly Malone. However, the construction of Prince Frederick Hall resulted in the department having to shuffle spaces in lots 19 and U2, located in Mowatt Lane Garage, forcing more students to park in overflow lots up to one and a half miles away.
“Over the years, the ratio has been trending down; we can’t sell as many spaces for one spot anymore,” Malone said. “This almost never happens.”
The department sold 804 permits this year for Lot 19, Malone said, which includes floors 4 and 5 and half of the roof, whereas last year, DOTS sold 1,086 permits for the lot, which then amounted to floors 2 through 5.
Although the first floor of the garage is unrestricted from 4 p.m. until 7 a.m., students who don’t want to wake up early to move their cars or risk getting a ticket when Lot 19 is at capacity must park elsewhere — either Lot 2 behind Oakland Hall, about a 20-minute walk from Mowatt, or Lots 4 and 6 near Comcast Center, about a 25-minute walk.
Malone said the department is adding 20 spaces to Lot 19 for student residents in the visitor area later this week.
“It seems like people are just leaving their cars there longer,” she said. “It might be gas prices, it might be less off-campus occupations or class schedules — it could be anything.”
However, several students said the department has been slow to address the issue.
“I think converting 20 Lot U spots back to Lot 19 is a start — it won’t really resolve the problem,” senior bioengineering major Kenny Rosenberg wrote in an email. “What makes the whole setup so frustrating is that Lot U always seems really empty, while students are left scrounging for spots up on the 4th and 5th floors.”
Senior music education major Brendan Kelly said DOTS should address the issue with students’ safety in mind, as residents may be alone when they have to hike from North Campus or Comcast if they don’t know ahead of time whether their assigned lot will be full late at night.
“Last year it wasn’t an issue, but I now have to drive around for 10 minutes until I find a spot if it’s close to midnight,” he said. “It seems necessary due to the construction and it makes sense that there are less spots … But they sold too many permits for too few spaces. I’m paying more than $400 to not even be guaranteed a spot when I return home.”
Several students, such as senior geography major Max Ozenberger, said they have still been able to find spaces in Lot 19 by settling for less convenient spaces on the top floors.
“I’ve just been forced to park in the higher, less convenient spots on floors 5 and 6 after midnight,” Ozenberger said.
However, others said they have repeatedly been faced with a full garage. “Last semester it was way less crowded — this year I’ve been completely unable to get a spot on multiple occasions,” said senior electrical engineering major Garrett Wenger. “They definitely didn’t make existence of the overflow lots obvious — I don’t even know where Lots 4 and 6 are.”
