There’s no doubt about it; parking at Longwood is a headache. Some may even say it’s one of the worst experiences they’ve had in college. Tickets, being towed, paying outrageous amounts for a parking ticket each semester and trying to find a spot to park your nice car where it won’t get backed into, sideswiped or completely crushed is a nightmare.
Everyone complains about parking, but nobody seems to listen. We all understand that this a small campus and that Longwood’s having a hard time sharing parking spots with the town of Farmville, but some things can be changed. I offer you testimonies from just three of the many different groups of people affected by parking here at Longwood: residential students, commuter students and visitors.
The first testimonial is from commuter student Cristina “Cris” Rhodes: “As a commuter student, the lack of adequate commuter parking lots around campus is often frustrating and more than a minor inconvenience. I typically either park in the lot behind the United Methodist Church or the lot off St. George Street, but neither of these lots is big enough to adequately provide spaces for all of the students that would park on that side of campus. On more than one occasion, I’ve had to drive around the block or to another lot entirely in search of a parking spot, a time consuming endeavor that has made me late to class more than once. The only other option is to park in the metered parking, which is not at all cost-efficient and unless you’re willing to run out and feed the meter every so often, is out of the question.
“The physical condition of the lots is also a problem. The lot off St. George Street floods when it rains, and if you are parking at the end of the lot your car will be sitting in several inches of standing water. The lots all across campus, not just on the north side, are rough. The dirt lots near the library are not only difficult to drive in because they’re so cramped, but are so muddy that I’m constantly worried my car will get stuck in them. The poor conditions of the commuter lots are off-putting.”
The second testimonial comes from residential student Victoria Blow: “Having your car at Longwood University isn’t all it is cracked up to be. When I had just become a sophomore at Longwood, I was ecstatic to be able to bring my car down to Farmville and drive my
friends around and have a dependable way to go home when I need to. Little did I know that there was a long list of things I was going to have to deal with, such as payment for the pass, finding a spot and getting back to my dorm safely.
“Parking at Longwood is atrocious. Residential parking is one of the most inconvenient and restricted aspects of being a student. The parking lots for on-campus students are on the far edge of campus, opposite most of the residential halls. On a dark or rainy night, this can be an extremely intimidating walk to make by yourself or even with a friend. Some people may not be so intimidated by this, but as a young female it is a sketchy walk back and there have been reports of robberies and assaults in the parking lots of Wynne before.
“Once you get to the parking lot, you realize how small the parking lots are and how many cars there seem to be parked there. I personally have spent a full ten minutes circling aisles fruitlessly, only to retire to the dreaded Wynne parking lot by the gym to walk back to Cox dormitory.
“This all wouldn’t be so bad if Longwood was actually doing something to increase the amount of spaces or lots that it has to accommodating the ever increasing numbers of students, but it isn’t. Most other universities I visited four years ago while deciding what school to go to had many parking complexes or extensive lots for students and visitors alike. I am now in my senior year at Longwood, and I still park in an antiquated gravel lot. All students, even visitors, experience this and it’s something that needs to be taken care of soon.”
The third testimonial is from a frequent visitor to Longwood University, Ian Simpkins:
“The parking at Longwood could be called ‘Less than favorable,’ but that would be an understatement. It can be a real nightmare sometimes. Parking on-campus is a pain because there aren’t many spaces that are two-hour parking. If I want to accompany my fiancé on campus for an hour or so, I have to drive around to see if any two- hour parking spots are open. If there aren’t any, then I have to park in the visitor’s lot, which is kind of sketchy even for man.
“As a visitor to the Landings, parking at night is weird in the Vernon Street Lot. It’s small, on the very outskirts of campus and the spaces are so close together that there is always the fear of finding your car with scrapes and dents. It’s ridiculous, too, that visitors can’t use student spots on the weekends. I’m sure that there are at least a few students who are going home, or even commuter students who won’t be showing up on weekends, so it should be no problem for visitors to park in them. There should also be more visitor lots closer to campus, with wider spots to minimize the potential for collisions.
“It not only would be more convenient for people visiting students on campus, it would also eliminate how sketchy it is some nights. I don’t think this is unreasonable to ask of the college, and I’m sure that I am not the only one who feels this way about the parking situation. If the college could even help one of the demographics who have problems with this, then it would help everyone. At the very least, it would make people happier and reduce the amount of complaints I’m sure come flooding in.”
The problem is not that we don’t have adequate police officers circling around the parking lots or Night Walkers who are available to walk with people if they don’t feel safe night. The problem is that we do not have adequate parking facilities. Visitors are not required to have parking passes from Friday night until Sunday night, but must be moved by 6 a.m. on Mondays. Why can’t visitors park in the parking garage or in commuter/faculty lots on the weekends? Why make them walk from the baseball field to the dorms their friends live in on the other side of campus? The biggest problem with visitor parking is that there are only fifteen two-hour parking spots. My sister came to visit me for a couple of hours on a Friday and wanted to go to the dining hall with me, but there were NO two-hour parking spots available. Every faculty/staff parking spot at the library was free, but we could not park there because we were afraid we would receive a ticket while we were eating lunch. What’s the problem with visitors parking at the blue curb on the weekends when these spots are obviously not being used?
Why aren’t residential students allowed to park in these parking lots on the weekends, too? Being moved by 6 a.m. on Monday mornings is necessary because faculty and staff need these parking spots during the week, but most of the faculty members do not come to campus on the weekends because, shockingly, they have lives outside of campus, too.
Freshmen with cars are a different case entirely. They’re forced to park at Lancer Park where, often, their cars are pummeled with baseballs by the club baseball team practices. Who’s responsible for the damages? Answer: The person who owns the car because they parked at their own risk. Cars belonging to residential and commuter students are often damaged, too, because the parking lots are tiny, the spots are made for tiny cars and students usually have cars that are longer or wider than the parking spots. Not everybody has a compact car, and I’ve witnessed people trying to park a truck with an extended cab. There’s no way that’s fitting into a compact spot, so they have no choice but to take up two.
When will the parking issue be fixed? They thought making another lot behind the Landings would help, but that lot is creepy and people don’t want to park that far away, especially if the Wynne lot is full and campus residents have to park there.
