RICHMOND, Va. – For Orion Pelausa, struggling to find parking in a city is expected, but living in a city that encompasses an entire university brings even more problems for him.
“It is extremely difficult to park anywhere near my house during the school week,” said Pelausa, a resident of Oregon Hill and student at VCU. “It complicates everything in my daily life, including simple errands.”
Lyndsey Lewis, another VCU student, agrees.
“I feel that the parking on campus is poorly managed; I pay for a parking deck pass in the West Main Street deck and even then it’s hard to find a place to park,” she said.
For Virginia Commonwealth University students and residents of the surrounding area, parking is scarce and it always will be. That’s what everyone living in urban areas can expect: lack of parking.
Many things contribute to the lack of parking, whether its construction, the time of day or the opening of new facilities like the Cary Street Gym. For some residents and students the parking situation causes a strain in their day and even forces them to plan ahead in order to find a good spot or just to keep their spot.
Limited parking can be caused by several factors, it’s not always the same one thing that takes away parking, including construction, new facilities, or the time and day of the week.
For instance, Bryan Brown, Director of Academic Space Management, says the busiest days with the most students scheduled for classes are on Tuesdays and Thursdays, with the traffic of students hitting campus, from 9 a.m. to 2 p.m.
Paul Walker, manager of Parking and Transportation services at VCU said that each day, Monday thru Friday, is different with parking. They have to manage each day and parking deck accordingly.
Walker and his staff have come up with a plan to manage full parking decks that should be implemented in the next few months. It consists of signs and using dry erase boards. Once a parking deck is full, he wants to use signs and the dry erase boards to direct traffic to other decks that aren’t full. The surrounding parking decks would be communicating by phone with one another to direct traffic to the deck with the most available parking.
There are a few reasons for the lack of parking. For instance, the opening of the new Cary Street Gym has stirred up a mess around Cary Street and surrounding Oregon Hill area. With increased traffic the residents of Oregon Hill are experiencing the intrusion of students parking, either going to class or to the gym.
“Traffic can get pretty ridiculous, especially in the Oregon Hill area,” said Pelausa. “People are typically driving up and down streets like Laurel and Cherry hoping to get a spot.”
Pelausa has also experienced problems with parking from the new gym being opened.
“The Cary Street Gym is directly across the street from my front door, so it has definitely affected parking negatively in my area,” Pelausa said. “It’s nearly impossible to park during the week. I typically have to park a few blocks away from my house.”
Even parking decks sometimes offer limited spaces.
“It's hard to find parking if you don’t have a parking pass,” said Lewis. “Last semester I paid a daily rate and was usually able to find a deck to park in. This semester, it seems like all the decks are for decal holders only.”
VCU Parking and Transportation says it is being proactive and trying to help students and area residents. Various plans are in order to help the need of parking. Also Walker, having attended VCU in 1979 and now working for parking and transportation services, knows what its like to be a student not being able to find parking.
With the Cary Street Gym and few parking available on the Cary Street Parking deck, Walker and his staff is entertaining the idea of placing two-hour parking signs on Cary Street instead of allowing all day parking. He believes the turn around of parking would pick up since people could no longer park on Cary Street for the entire day. As well as adding more turn around on main streets like Cary Street by regulating parking duration times, they plan on building more parking decks. Walker said, VCU Parking and Transportation is trying to build two decks, one each on both sides of Henry Street that would be able to hold 750 vehicles.
All this talk about parking brought up the issue of alternative ways of getting to school and classes. What about buses? Will there be an increase or some sort of new plan?
“It is extremely difficult to park anywhere near my house during the school week,” said Pelausa, a resident of Oregon Hill and student at VCU. “It complicates everything in my daily life, including simple errands.”
Lyndsey Lewis, another VCU student, agrees.
“I feel that the parking on campus is poorly managed; I pay for a parking deck pass in the West Main Street deck and even then it’s hard to find a place to park,” she said.
For Virginia Commonwealth University students and residents of the surrounding area, parking is scarce and it always will be. That’s what everyone living in urban areas can expect: lack of parking.
Many things contribute to the lack of parking, whether its construction, the time of day or the opening of new facilities like the Cary Street Gym. For some residents and students the parking situation causes a strain in their day and even forces them to plan ahead in order to find a good spot or just to keep their spot.
Limited parking can be caused by several factors, it’s not always the same one thing that takes away parking, including construction, new facilities, or the time and day of the week.
For instance, Bryan Brown, Director of Academic Space Management, says the busiest days with the most students scheduled for classes are on Tuesdays and Thursdays, with the traffic of students hitting campus, from 9 a.m. to 2 p.m.
Paul Walker, manager of Parking and Transportation services at VCU said that each day, Monday thru Friday, is different with parking. They have to manage each day and parking deck accordingly.
Walker and his staff have come up with a plan to manage full parking decks that should be implemented in the next few months. It consists of signs and using dry erase boards. Once a parking deck is full, he wants to use signs and the dry erase boards to direct traffic to other decks that aren’t full. The surrounding parking decks would be communicating by phone with one another to direct traffic to the deck with the most available parking.
There are a few reasons for the lack of parking. For instance, the opening of the new Cary Street Gym has stirred up a mess around Cary Street and surrounding Oregon Hill area. With increased traffic the residents of Oregon Hill are experiencing the intrusion of students parking, either going to class or to the gym.
“Traffic can get pretty ridiculous, especially in the Oregon Hill area,” said Pelausa. “People are typically driving up and down streets like Laurel and Cherry hoping to get a spot.”
Pelausa has also experienced problems with parking from the new gym being opened.
“The Cary Street Gym is directly across the street from my front door, so it has definitely affected parking negatively in my area,” Pelausa said. “It’s nearly impossible to park during the week. I typically have to park a few blocks away from my house.”
Even parking decks sometimes offer limited spaces.
“It's hard to find parking if you don’t have a parking pass,” said Lewis. “Last semester I paid a daily rate and was usually able to find a deck to park in. This semester, it seems like all the decks are for decal holders only.”
VCU Parking and Transportation says it is being proactive and trying to help students and area residents. Various plans are in order to help the need of parking. Also Walker, having attended VCU in 1979 and now working for parking and transportation services, knows what its like to be a student not being able to find parking.
With the Cary Street Gym and few parking available on the Cary Street Parking deck, Walker and his staff is entertaining the idea of placing two-hour parking signs on Cary Street instead of allowing all day parking. He believes the turn around of parking would pick up since people could no longer park on Cary Street for the entire day. As well as adding more turn around on main streets like Cary Street by regulating parking duration times, they plan on building more parking decks. Walker said, VCU Parking and Transportation is trying to build two decks, one each on both sides of Henry Street that would be able to hold 750 vehicles.
All this talk about parking brought up the issue of alternative ways of getting to school and classes. What about buses? Will there be an increase or some sort of new plan?
Walker said that the university is considering a possible campus circulator, which would be a bus system only for VCU and its students. It would also benefit people who use the escort service, who sometimes end up waiting for the service.
Walker, who once was a student at VCU, has a good perspective. When asked, has parking gotten better over time? He responded,
“Clearly…they went from no decks in’79 to six decks on this campus and we’re going to have nine very soon.”
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