63% of students and Shepherd University believe that there are not enough parking spots on campus, a poll conducted in January suggests.
“I feel like it would be better if on this side of campus there would be a little bit more parking because when I come the lots a lot of times are full, and I park in the street – and then I get ticketed,” commuter student Jae Kirkpatrick-Mora said.
There are currently eight parking lots on campus dedicated to commuter students and three dedicated to residential students, with one lot being shared between the two groups.
Many students who commute to Shepherd have echoed their frustration about the parking lot distribution between commuter lots and resident lots.
“To be honest I see a lot of complaints from commuters on YikYak about the parking situation. I don’t think residents have it too bad at all because of H-Lot,” Aiden Hughley said.
H-Lot is a joint commuter-and-resident lot.
While there are six exclusive commuter lots at Shepherd, (A-Lot, C-Lot, L-Lot, F-Lot, G-Lot, and K-Lot), and only two exclusive residential lots (E-Lot and I-Lot), most students are commuters, with some complaining about how resident students occasionally park in commuter lots, as found by a Picket editor.
Parking lots aren’t the only obstacles faced to get to class for commuters.
Commuter students often run into a myriad of problems as they try to get to class including fog, rain, snow, poor traffic conditions, or driving to class from an off-campus job.
Not being able to find a place to park worsens these issues, leading commuter students to two options:
They can either park on King Street or park at H-Lot (where there are usually many open spots). The first option is to park in a part of Shepherdstown not part of campus, so they will be spending at least $2.00 a day by parking meter on top of the initial $70 paid for a campus parking pass per year.
Or they can park at H-Lot and be even later to class because most of the classes on campus are on the East side of campus whereas H-Lot is on the West side, adding about 15 to 20 minutes to their daily commute.
Shepherd students are also not allowed to park at the meters on King Street.
Despite this, Shepherd students (both commuter and residential) resort to parking on King St.
This leads to many tickets. Even when using the Passport Parking App for meter parking on King Street, it is easy to miss the meter expiration and get ticketed.
There is currently a Campus Master Plan from 2014 that was updated in 2020, which outlines the idea of creating a parking garage where C-lot currently stands, however no construction has been seen in the designated area as of Feb 2024.
The University recognizes that parking has been a continual issue for students driving to campus.
Vice President for Student Affairs and Director of Community Relations Holly Frye sent an e-mail regarding additional parking for commuters saying, “In an effort to provide more parking spaces for our commuter students on East Campus we are transitioning K-lot [adjacent to EOB and C-lot] from faculty/staff to commuter student parking. This will create 30 additional student parking spaces.”
Even with K-Lot being converted to a commuter lot, students do not think there is enough parking for them on campus.