t’s not the first thing most people look at when they begin to look at colleges, but parking can be a big deal if you’re bringing a car to campus. This is true for Elizabethtown College students, as parking is very limited and has caused numerous complaints from the student body. While it is understandable that the campus is limited in space and money, this does not mean that they should not fulfill the obligation to provide adequate parking to students.
Every student knows that there are designated areas on campus where certain class years can park. First-years have access to Brown Lot, sophomores have access to Brown Lot plus parking behind Myer and “J” Lot, and juniors and seniors can park anywhere that’s open. “At least I can bring a car to college freshman year. A lot of colleges won’t even do that,” first-year Carolyn Urban said. “As much as people may complain about the inconvenience of Brown Lot, it’s better than not having a car at all.” However, seniors Rob Otto and Alexis Geibler were less enthused about the current setup. “Parking is so bad that I don’t even want to leave my apartment sometimes because I know if I do someone is just going to take my spot” Geibler said. “I’m an RA in Myer and I had to circle the building three times before I found a spot, which is very inconvenient when I have to be on duty,” Otto said. Under most circumstances, this organizational setup would work just fine for most people; various factors on campus have been known to diminish the efficiency of this setup.
Elizabethtown Assistant Director of Campus Security Dale Boyer had his own view on the parking situation at Etown. During his 23 years of service at the College, he has seen a multitude of changes and remembers when Brinser field and the BSC all used to be parking. “As it stands now, the College only has room for roughly a 2000 student limit. If it goes over, it leads to problems,” Boyer said. To make matters worse, he informed me that some students don’t even bother to register their cars and if they do get ticketed for parking in the wrong spot. Students don’t care and continue to do it anyway, which messes up the system for everybody else.
According to Boyer, the worst issues are when there are special events on campus, and parking is taken up by reservations or visitors to the campus, which creates a cascade effect. This often results in certain groups losing their normal parking so they move their car where they normally wouldn’t go. “I would love to have parking for everybody, but any change we make has a cascade effect that benefits one person but hurts someone else, so it’s just not feasible,” Boyer said.
That’s not to say that the College hasn’t tried to fix the parking problem. There have been multiple propositions in the past, for example expanding the Myer back parking lot and the parking up past the quads. However, all plans have been put on hold due to financial concerns. I believe this hinders Etown’s plans on becoming a more nationally recognized college because an expanding student body creates a higher demand for student parking, which Etown does not currently have the finances to create.
Personally, I think it would be more efficient for everyone involved to create new parking through an expansion of Myer parking lot and maybe even have strict junior and senior parking sections to make more room for underclassmen and guests for events. While this may cost more, it will allow more space for events and show that Etown appreciates the upperclassmen by providing designated parking.
