Photo Courtesy of Keri Krasnoff ’24
If you ever had to park in the West Lot (also known as gravel lot) located behind Sprout Garden, be warned that once you park you might have to kiss your car goodbye until the end of the year. This semester has been my first experience with parking in the West Lot after parking my car in the North Lot last year, and there is a big difference in the quality of parking. A benefit of North Lot is that it has a lot of space, since spots are limited to students living in KB, Larrabee, Earth House, and the Plex (not including the first year dorms). However, parking in West Lot is a different story. I always wonder if I will be able to get out of my spot depending on how other cars are parked or whether I will be able to find a spot when I return to campus. Perhaps this is best illustrated by the time my friend and I came back from a concert at 1 a.m. We spent over 15 minutes driving through each aisle of West Lot with two other cars behind us looking for a spot to park, to no avail. To avoid waking up to a ticket in the morning, we ended up parking in a very tight spot at the end of the lot that was almost in a bush.
The root of the issue seems to be that West Lot serves a total of eight residential houses: Windham, Lazarus, Burdick, Smith, Plant, Knowlton, Blackstone and Branford. There are far too many cars assigned to such a limited space. Caitlin Boyd ‘24 is also assigned to West Lot and constantly has trouble finding a spot to park. “I recently tried to park in West Lot, but there was nowhere to park because the cars were unevenly spaced and it was overcrowded,” said Boyd. Since parking is so hard to find this semester, it is also worrying to think about how much worse the problem will be once the largest class at Conn is allowed to bring cars on campus next fall semester.
Boyd also noted that she was recently ticketed after finding no spots in the lot. “It was unclear where to go if my designated parking lot was full. I ended up being ticketed for parking in faculty parking when there were no student spots,” said Boyd. For the time being, while it is difficult to find more space on campus for student parking, this means that campus safety needs to be more forgiving of students who are also in Boyd’s situation.
With limited parking spaces also comes creative ways for students to park their cars due to a lack of organization within the lot. There are always a plethora of cars that are crooked and taking up two spots, sticking out way too much and blocking cars from backing out, sometimes even both! Since there is no clear distinction of what counts as a parking spot, it is difficult for students trying to find a spot and trying to get out. This problem would be easily solved with parking lines set up so that drivers can be more aware of how to park in order to allocate more space and an easier flow of traffic when entering and leaving the lot.
Overall, for the $75 that students have to pay to be able to park their cars on campus, there should be better quality parking and a guarantee that you will have a spot. The stress that comes with parking in the West Lot is only going to get worse as it gets colder. With snow and ice, it will be even more difficult to find space in a lot where the number of cars seems to exceed the maximum capacity. The administration needs to step up and acknowledge this problem before it gets worse. For the time being, lines should be set up and campo should not penalize students for parking in faculty spots until administration finds a solution to the lack of parking for camels.
