On June 28, Parking Services and Trinity University Police Department (TUPD) introduced a series of updates to on-campus parking to find solutions to numerous complaints from the community. According to the Trinity website, the university made several changes to parking and permits.
Adjustments to parking:
- Permits for non-residential students to park on campus
- Allowing more students to park in upper campus lots outside of business hours
- Free-access permits for faculty, staff and non-residential students to park in Alamo Stadium’s lot and surrounding university streets
- TUPD and Parking Services aimed to address frequent issues and improve the state of parking for students, staff and faculty.
As the Trinitonian previously reported on, Trinity’s parking issues have existed for years, with students frequently critiquing the lack of parking spots compared to the number of cars and fines up to $50 for infractions like parking outside a designated space.
Members of Parking Services and TUPD teamed up to make and introduce the new measures. John Rowse, TUPD assistant police chief, said he believes that the changes will help the Trinity community more than it might harm it.
“The main reasons for this change are that it enhances safety, supports a more orderly environment and is a fair process,” Rowse wrote in an email. “From a safety standpoint, having permits consistently displayed makes it easier to identify unauthorized vehicles on campus and to contact community members when there is an issue with their vehicle that they need to be made aware of.”
Rowse works with Parking Services and leads the traffic and parking committee, which meets several times a year to discuss parking issues. He spoke about his work on the parking updates and on Trinity’s strategic plan, “Ready, Set, Rise.”
“I believe these changes are a great first step to improving the parking challenges on campus. The biggest change was that residential students are no longer allowed to park in upper campus parking lots during business hours. This will allow non-residential students who purchase a permit to have better access to parking to attend their classes as well as open up some additional space for faculty, staff and visitors,” Rowse wrote.
With the start of the fall semester, allowing more parking and making navigating campus easier for the Trinity community is a major priority for TUPD, according to Rowse. Still, the complaints about the parking issues persist as the semester kicks off. Ethan Wasserman, senior biology major, is a resident of City Vista and has felt frustrated by the way parking has impacted his time as a student.
“There are a very limited number of spaces there for all of the people who need to live there,” Wasserman said. “And we’ve had issues with break-ins for people that park nearby in addition, and trying to get to class can be a struggle because we’re all the way across.”
Eli Catran, senior psychology major, said that the parking problems impacting students living on campus are mirrored at City Vista. He expressed that the issues with parking specifically impact juniors and sophomores, Catran wrote in an instant message. He said that the issues also affect the spots around Bruce Thomas Hall, North Hall and South Hall.
“Often the spots were taken by cars that never left, which was frustrating,” Catran wrote. “I think they simply need to make new spots close to where people live.”
This is the first semester Parking Services fully integrated these new changes into the already-established parking system at Trinity. Despite all the new changes, students are finding new issues with the new parking adjustments.
