Finding a place to park has been a longtime issue for University of Memphis commuter students, and now, with the pedestrian bridge and parking garage construction on Southern Avenue, the situation for some has become even worse.
Angela Floyd, director of Parking and Transportation Services, said she understood other general parking spaces were used “more heavily” than those located on Southern Avenue, but the efforts by Parking and Transportation Services to alleviate parking issues this year have occurred on the parking lots surrounding the construction area.
“Parking and Transportation Services has completed many expansion projects over the last couple of years in preparation for the impact of the construction,” Floyd said.
Many commuter students have voiced their opinions on their inability to find parking spots near the main campus in a timely manner. This difficulty in locating a place to park forces many commuters to be late for classes, walk long distances or arrive to campus much earlier than the time their classes begin.
The pedestrian bridge and parking garage construction area took the place of 580 parking spots off Southern Avenue, Floyd said. In response, Parking and Transportation Services expanded lots by the Recreation Center and beyond the Athletic Office Building, creating 351 new spaces south of Southern Avenue.
Despite these attempts to relieve the problem, senior psychology and social work major Keontay Holliman said he has accepted that there will not be enough parking spaces, especially near campus.
“It’s been a struggle over the years,” Holliman said. “On the daily, it’s hard to find a close parking spot. Thursday is probably the worst day because I don’t have class until 11, so that means people that have morning classes are already here.”
Joshua Thornton, a 22-year-old business management major, said the difficulty of finding parking depends on what time he gets to campus.
“Of course at 8 a.m., you’re going to have a lot of parking spots, but around 10:20 and 9:40, which is what time I have class, it’s really difficult to find a spot,” Thornton said. “I’m driving around in circles trying to find a close spot, seeing if anyone is walking to their car, so I can try to steal their spot after they’re gone.”
Even for students who pay the extra price for priority permit parking, finding a place to park still poses its challenges.
Mikayla Adams, a 21-year-old senior history major, said finding parking is “impossible.” Due to parking, even for her first class at 11:20 a.m. Tuesdays and Thursdays, Adams said she arrives each day at 8 a.m.
“If you get here after 8:30, you end up on the roof where your car’s under the blistering sun, which defeats the purpose of paying for a $100 parking pass,” Adams said.
Adams said she has been parking in the same priority permit garage for years and has never had so many hardships parking until this semester. She said she attributes the new parking troubles to the pedestrian bridge construction.
“I feel like since they’ve eliminated a lot of parking while they’re doing construction right now, it’s made a lot of people buy the parking pass for the garage,” Adams said. “It’s added more people in the garage than we normally have. There’s a line of us going through the garage … anywhere from five to 10 cars every morning of us just looping the garage.”
Construction takes place on the Southern Avenue parking garage and pedestrian bridge. Parking Services said spots were added prior to construction to make up for the spots taken away by that construction.
