Do you have a car? Do you travel to a college on a regular basis? UNE is one school in Maine that has a diverse group of people traveling to it every day. One thing that may not come to mind when driving to college is thinking about where you are going to park. UNE has 16 parking lots on campus for everyone that has business here to park in. A lot of people would think that 16 parking lots would mean a great chance of finding a parking spot. But, yet there are many people that complain about trying to find a parking spot. Let’s start with a little picture of how the parking lots are actually set up to help show how difficult it may be for someone to find a parking spot.
Here, the key components to look at are the parking lots across campus.
Now that you see how the parking lots are set up around campus let’s get a little more detailed. Parking lots numbered; 9,10,15,22,28,30 and 31 are for residents to park in. Commuters are restricted to parking lots numbered; 8, 14, 16, 18, and 20. Now the faculty and staff of the campus also have their specific parking lots they are suppose to park in. Those parking lots are numbered; 2, 4, 6, 7, 12, and 24; there are smaller areas in parking lots numbered; 8, 10, and 16 for faculty and staff to park in. Now looking at the map it is seen that faculty an staff get closer parking spots than all residents and commuters.
There are only so many parking spots that can be open for residents, faculty, and commuters of the University. Security and the Campus Committee are the ones who decide what would be best for the campus. The Campus Committee is made up of a few different people; Alethea Cariddi who is in charge of sustainability, the Undergraduate Student Government (USG), Maria Goodman from Student Affairs, and Timothy Brienza who is head of facilities. So when it comes down to a campus-wide decision being made this committee either agrees or discharges the suggestion.
Keeping everyone happy when it comes to how parking lots are set up is not an easy task. There will always be people who will complain and argue for a better system. Starting at the source of all decisions is key to get an inside look as to how the parking lots actually operate. Chad Stevens, head of security at UNE as of January 2019, talked a lot about different aspects of the parking situation. He talked about how there have been a few changes, a few suggestions, more communication, and consistent snow removal schedules. They are open for feedback and any suggestions that pertain to parking and how they could make it better. Some of the changes that have already been made are; switching Freddy (parking lot #9) from a commuter parking lot to residential. “Another big thing we added that people may or not be aware of is the safe ride bus transporting throughout the day across campus,” Stevens mentioned. Security and the Campus Committee have allowed residential students to park in the commuter lots on weekends. They just have to make sure they move their car back on Sunday night to be fair to the commuters, faculty, and staff who have to find parking in their designated spots the next day. Although these may seem like small changes, they are changes nonetheless and coming from Stevens, “We have seen improvement. It all goes back to communications, we send out emails [about the parking].” The security of the UNE does its best to get out all the information the people of UNE need to know in a sweet concise manner. They are trying to continue finding better ways of how they can go about the parking so more people can be happy but there is always a handful that has something negative to say about it. Some of those who the set up the parking system really affect are the commuters, faculty, and staff.
