Alumni Center eats more parking spaces

The recent completion of the new perimeter road, and the pending construction of the Alumni Center have resulted in the loss of 873 student, faculty, and staff parking spaces at CSUS.

Construction of the perimeter road eliminated 423 student and 200 faculty spaces. The new Alumni Center, which will be built over parking spaces in Lot 8, will mean the loss of an additional 250 student parking spaces.

Howard Harris, associate vice president for Facilities Management, stated earlier this year that he expected some temporary loss of parking due to construction of the roadway.

However, he felt that once the project was complete, there would be no net loss in available parking spaces. That statement would later prove to be inaccurate.

At the September 30 meeting of the Transportation Advisory Committee, it was admitted that although the 423 students parking spaces had been recovered, the 200 faculty spaces lost to construction had yet to be restored.

According to professor Val Smith, a member of the Transportation Advisory Committee, several alternatives are currently being discussed. Solutions to the loss of faculty parking spaces include adding spaces when the bike lot moves from its current, temporary location, and redesigning the faculty lot in front of El Dorado Hall to accommodate more cars.

Additionally, with the construction of the new Alumni Center soon to begin, 150 student parking spaces will be removed from Lot 8 for the building to sit on. Another 100 student spaces surrounding the building will be designated for Alumni Center parking only.

For sophomore Tiffani Delange, parking couldn't be worse. At a time when enrollment at CSUS is going up, Delange fails to understand why the number of parking spaces is going down.

"It's such a hassle fighting for parking. You have to be here by 8 a.m. if you want a decent spot, and then it seems as though all the spots are compact, which are hard to cram into," said Delange.

In her opinion, the only solution would be to build another student lot or parking garage. This is just what ASI president Gary Davis has in mind.

"This is a battle we have already lost. The university has decided to build it, and there's not much the students can do about it," Davis said regarding the loss of parking to the new Alumni Center.

One battle Davis feels can be won is the expansion of Lot 6. Currently Lot 6, which sits just south of the University Union, contains only a few handicapped spaces in addition to loading zones for the union. Under the expansion plan, which was announced on the October 5 meeting of the Transportation Advisory Committee, Lot 6 would be extended to include 240 parking spaces dedicated solely for the use of students.

"Mike Barnbaum, a student member of the TAC committee, and I waged a heated debate in the meeting that Lot 6 should be constructed for more student parking. I'm glad we won," said Davis, who campaigned last semester to improving parking at CSUS.