Parking Pass(ing By)
Parking is a problem on campus.Such a statement can be put on the same level as someone saying water is wet, or that the sky is blue. It’s an issue that multiple students across multiple campuses deal with on a daily basis, and it only adds to the stress that college students have to deal with during the semester. The question is, though- why is this still an ongoing problem, and what all is going on behind the scenes in an attempt to quell it? We also need to look at Stillwater as a whole and understand that such parking issues don't only plague OSU, and because of how this town is known as a college town, the parking situation in Stillwater as a whole should also be looked into. I’ll be exploring these different facets and perspectives on this site, and hopefully by the end, we’ll have a better idea as to why problems with parking are as common as students pulling all-nighters at college - many people wish it wasn’t, but it’s just an unfortunate fact of life.
CAMPUS ISSUES
The first day of classes, I had shown up to campus to park around 9:15 AM, with my first class being at 10:30 AM. I managed to snag a spot around 10:10 AM, only because I spotted a student backing out of their spot before anybody else could notice.After that first week, I began heading to campus at 7 in the morning - three and a half hours before my first class started - just so I could be able to find a parking spot with no worries at all. I’m not the only one who’s had to come to campus at such an early time, though- Beck Suhrstedt, a Junior who commutes and has a pass for the Silver Lot, has said that they typically arrive on campus 7:30 in the morning just to find sufficient parking- that’s about 1-2 hours early compared to when their shift at work on campus starts or when their first class starts, depending on the day. Not only that, but there’s another situation that’s arguably the most anxiety inducing- having to experience the terror of seeing a car actively waiting for you to get back to your spot and pull out, where you risk being too slow and not even getting a chance to unwind after a stressful day of classes, all because there aren’t enough open parking spaces during the afternoon. I will admit, I’ve been on both sides of this situation, and it’s most definitely awkward for all parties involved. Suhrstedt has also commented that the longest they had to look for a spot was 30 minutes, and it was only because they saw someone pulling out of their spot that they were lucky enough to snag that space and park. An issue of time is also a big factor as to why the parking situation is seen as so pressing to students, with Suhrstedt saying they’d been close to being late for an exam because they weren’t able to find a parking spot in time.Having to find parking before classes isn’t the only issue, as there also lies the problem of looking for spots late into the night - after late shifts at work, or even just after hanging out at a friend’s house. Payton Adams, a Sophomore who usually parks behind North Commons or in the Commons lot, explains that after heading home from a D&D session on a Wednesday night, she wasn’t able to find parking until midnight - she had left roughly around 11:15 PM. For those who live on campus, much like Adams has experienced, it’s more trouble than it’s worth losing your parking space to drive somewhere else. As said by Kaitlyn Pierce, a student who was interviewed for the O’Colly article Campus Parking Is Less An Issue of Spots And More An Issue of Location, “If you get a front row spot next to your dorm, you’re not moving for a month.” (qtd. in Norman 2017). After what Adams went through that night, it makes sense that most students who live on dorms and on campus often opt to walk to their classes rather than risking losing their spot in an attempt to seek convenience.Junior Kaylee Melcher has experienced the same problem as Adams with regards to finding parking much later than she would’ve preferred, and she explains that:I have not been late for any events, but having to spend so much time finding a spot (and sometimes walking, if I was unlucky enough to have to park in lots that were a long walk away from my dorm) meant that I got home from events some nights much later than I had planned to when I had class early the next morning. (Melcher, 2023)She also shares that when she isn’t able to find spots in lots on campus, she would have to resort to parking at The Garage restaurant, and she says she’s also seen multiple other students do so as well. In fact, multiple off campus lots deal with this same issue, a topic we’ll touch on in the Stillwater Parking link. In any case, it’s clear parking is an issue no matter if someone is a commuter or living on campus, with each option creating its own little set of problems.
Screenshot showing where The Garage restaurant is in relation to OSU campus.
OTHER ISSUES
As a commuter, I utilize the Green Lot, a lot located by Boone Pickens Stadium. Throughout my semester at OSU, there've been multiple issues that involved the Green Lot, and most recently such a problem involves a little less than half of the spaces being closed off due to construction, as pictured below. This construction appeared to be in progress in order to expand BPS, not one intended to expand the parking lot. This construction appeared to have began on November 27th, a week before the week commonly known as “Dead Week” among students- with parking already being a struggle to find, it’s no doubt plausible to assume that with a new lack of parking, especially before such important dates, will only add to the difficulty that students are already facing so close to the semester’s end.
(Red Highlighted indicates construction zone)
Another key issue that many students face regarding parking is that of game days that fall on weekdays rather than weekends. A notable example was on October 6th, when Oklahoma State University hosted Kansas State University. E-mails were sent to all students regarding new parking details, including a link which explained when lots would be closing early to accommodate football guests. For a majority of students, this meant the lot they typically parked in would be closed all day, and for commuters, this spelled trouble- again, the Green Lot I have a pass for (Lot 6) was among those to be closed all day. Some professors opted to cancel class that day, understanding the difficulties and even experiencing the early lot closures themselves, while others maintained their schedule.
(Football-Parking-map-F23-FRIDAY)
PARKING LOT INFO
Oklahoma State University has multiple lots across campus in order to provide students with different options of where they can park, although they vary greatly with how convenient they are, how close they are to certain buildings and locations. Not only that, but OSU Parking Director Steven Spradling had said in an interview conducted by Stuff OSU Should Know that certain permits are limited, while others are oversold, an example of the latter being for the Silver Commuter lot, namely because it’s seen almost as a “catch-all zone” (Spradling, 2021). Silver lots can be accessed on the eastern side of campus, near the Allie P. Reynolds Stadium all the way to the western side of campus, by Kamm Hall, giving students plenty of lots to choose from by purchasing this permit. In fact, if we look at the report provided to me by Spradling via e-mail, we can see just exactly how many permits were sold for the Silver lot compared to how many spaces are available - a whopping 4,532 sold, while there are only 1,534 spots available.While this seems like an extreme discrepancy - which it certainly is, the permits sold being well over twice the amount of spaces available - Spradling used an analogy of waiting for a table at a restaurant; selling permits just one-for-one in terms of parking spaces isn’t manageable, as it’d be like if a waiter at a restaurant explained that a table was no longer able to be used and taken up by others just because someone else recently ate there, even after they left (Spradling, 2021). At a campus as large as OSU, it wouldn’t exactly make sense, nor would it be fair to others if the parking spots as a whole were a first come, first serve basis, especially considering the length of the semester. Thus, it does make sense for them to oversell on permits for certain lots. In that same interview, too, they discuss how parking seems much more chaotic, much more full earlier in the year, but halfway through, students either are able to think of a good enough routine to get used to such difficulties, or other students end up dropping classes, lessening the stress of parking if at least by a little bit.Within this interview as well, Spradling talks about how he’s aware of students complaining about the inconvenience of parking; for example, he talks about how a student could complain that they had spent twenty minutes looking for a parking space close to a building they need to go into. He explains that a better idea would have been parking somewhere closer to a bus stop, riding the bus to their destination in less than fifteen minutes. Better yet, ride a bike or even just walk on campus, saying that we have a tight, compact campus (Spradling, 2021). To be fair, that is true - it’s a very walkable campus, and altogether fairly easy to navigate. My argument to that, though, is that if I’m paying upwards of $100 on a parking pass, I’d much prefer to get my money’s worth out of it. Along with that, bus service is actually limited due to a shortage in drivers, likely making taking the bus less helpful than it had been in previous semesters ("Community Transit - Oklahoma State University").I think it’s also important to note that this interview was conducted in 2021 - they mention how permit sales were actually lower than previous years, (Spradling, 2021), something we can see when comparing the permits sold reports of 2021 to 2023, and it’s very likely COVID is the reason for this. So many classes were being conducted virtually that a large number of students didn’t have to commute, didn’t even have to go on campus or leave their dorms as a result.Now that the COVID pandemic has been declared as being over for well over seven months as of writing this, enrollment and purchasing of permits is back in full swing, in-person classes returning to being the norm, and parking- once again- stays a hot topic. However, measures are being taken to attempt to solve the parking problem, even if it’s only slowly coming along.
(Pictures taken from Green Lot, around 1:30pm. Notice the clear lack of empty spaces- the cars pictured continued to circle the lots in an attempt to find parking, and as I was taking these pictures, I worried I was keeping them from taking my space, a little concerned they may have been growing impatient.)