Image of parking outside of Ross residence hall. Photo by William Woodson
By William Woodson
Limited parking spots, less street parking due to a growing Seaboard Station and drivers speeding on campus are creating some issues for students and staff at William Peace University.
Mary Gardner, a sophomore student at WPU, said she is a commuter and does not stay on campus, but she has noticed there are some significant issues within the parking areas.
She said the construction around some of the residence halls, including Ross, is causing some disorganization and students are finding it difficult to park and get in and out of the lots easily.
“I have heard from people that, due to the parking problems, getting into their residence hall is a struggle,” she said.
Gardner said some of the issues in the parking lot involve the drivers themselves.
“There have been many times I’ve come into the parking lot, and students have come flying in, not really paying attention to what’s around them,” she said. “That’s become very dangerous.”
She said these students who are speeding are not being considerate of the people and what is happening around them. “They just want to get where they need to be. But I’ve seen some real scenarios where danger could have been really possible because they were just speeding through and not being careful.”
People who live on campus have said finding a parking space is becoming more and more difficult, Gardner said. “They need to know that they can park their car in a safe, reliable place, so they can get into their hall. They’re having to find new places to park and experiencing stress.”
With the many things that students have to manage and consider, parking should be one thing that does not cause concern, she said.
“When you live on campus, you want to make sure you can get to where you need to, and being able to find a parking space is really important in order to do that,” Gardner said. “I think people are quite annoyed and frustrated with the parking situation, which is affecting their experience being a student living on campus.”
Gardner says finding a spot easily allows students to feel more confident about leaving their valuable possession in the lot overnight. “You want to know you have a space to leave that and you can depend on having a space to leave your car. You want to make sure you have a good parking lot that can provide what it needs and how it needs to.”
To ease the problems, Gardner said the university could consider looking at the layout of the parking areas to make sure they are arranged the most efficient way possible. She said finding another smaller parking lot close by could offer additional parking for students, if that option was financially possible for the university to consider.
Dawn Dillon, Director of the First Year Experience at WPU, says, from a staff perspective, the middle of the day is when most people see parking issues.
When she arrives on campus around 8 a.m., she said there is no problem grabbing a parking space, but the middle of the day causes parking issues.
“The only time it’s challenging is if you leave during the day and try to come back,” she said. “Between 10 a.m. and 2 p.m. it seems to be really crowded in the parking lot.”
She said one of the main reasons parking is getting to be such an issue is because street parking is extremely limited. The explosion of growth at Seaboard Station has brought more people to the apartments and the restaurants in that area.
A few years ago, Seaboard Station included a lawn and garden shop and a few restaurants. That has changed since a high-rise building was added and hundreds of places were added where people could live and more restaurants of various sizes were added. More are planned as the space continues to grow.
According to the Raleigh Downtown Alliance, Seaboard Station includes a multi-building development that has added 577 apartments and 149 hotel rooms to the three blocks across the street from WPU. In addition to the living spaces, Seaboard Station has several restaurants like Bad Daddy’s, The Yard Milkshake Bar, and Starbucks.
With more people coming to Seaboard Station, parking fills up quickly during the day, so people begin parking on the streets. Those spots along the street around the WPU campus used to be where students would park if they were commuting and/or did not purchase an official parking pass for parking on the campus.
“Parking is getting really tight because we don’t have the parking on the street like we used to,” Dillon said. “So, I think Peace is going to have to be creative in coming up with new and alternative places to park.”