In every living area, there are far less parking spots than residents. Graphic: Hunter Foote
With an ever-growing student body and, with that, an influx of cars on campus, both the Student Government Association and the administration are seeking solutions to relieve the parking congestion on campus.
Some 4,036 students currently have registered vehicles with APU parking permits, according to numbers from the Department of Campus Safety. Of those, 146 are regional students who do not park on the main Azusa campus. The remaining 3,890 students who park on the Azusa campus include undergraduate and graduate, part-time and full-time, on-campus and commuter students. These 3,890 students all vie for the 3,217 parking spaces that are available to students at all times.
From 7 p.m. to 7 a.m. and on weekends, there are 3,901 spots available to students, because they can utilize the faculty and staff spaces.
Despite the fact that there are 673 more registered vehicles than there are spaces, APU has never run out of parking spaces since students are parking at different times in different spaces. H-Lot, the large overflow parking space on West Campus that has 1,105 spots, has never been filled to capacity, according to Campus Safety.
According to Executive Vice President David Bixby, the fullest the administration anticipated the parking lot would ever be was during an APU vs. Biola basketball game a few years ago. During this time, graduate students were also on campus taking classes.
“The places that were open were way over to the west, but even then, the parking lot had plenty of places,” Bixby said.
Parking, especially on East Campus, remains a big problem for students who drive to campus every day. More than 2,340 commuters students attend APU, according to the Office of Communiversity. On East, commuter students can park in A Lot, which has 428 spaces.
Senior psychology major and commuter student Tabitha Collins pointed out that visitors also take up those spaces.
“Sometimes APU provides great hospitality to guests but the students then are unable to find adequate parking,” said Collins. “I think this is an area that could use improvement since each commuter does pay an annual fee to park at school. If we pay that fee then there should be enough parking.”
On-campus students have also complained of the inconvenience of parking in the housing areas.
“During the week, it’s usually impossible to find parking in the Mods [parking] lot after 5 p.m.,” sophomore graphics design major Rachel Lewis said. “All I want to do is go into my mod and have a nice dinner after work, but instead sometimes I have to drive around for another 20-30 minutes waiting until someone leaves. I waste more gas trying to find parking than actually driving myself around. Basically, I think APU should only hand out as many parking passes as there are spots in the lot it allows you to park in.”
In a recent Clause poll of 47 Bowles and the Shire Mods residents, about 57 percent said they were somewhat dissatisfied and an additional 23 percent said they were very dissatisfied with parking in the residential areas.
Freshmen are allowed to bring cars but are discouraged with a $285 annual permit fee, while other students only pay $110 per year for a permit. Freshmen are also required to keep their cars in H-Lot. In order to get to their vehicles, freshmen must walk or trolley a little more than half a mile to West Campus.
On-campus sophomores and upperclassmen are also forced to park on West if they cannot find parking in their living areas.
In the Mods alone there 376 residents and 122 parking spaces, according to Resident Director Adam Higgenbotham and Campus Safety. The Clause reached out to Campus Safety to get a break down of how many permits were given out in each living area but Campus Safety responded with, “We have provided you with all the information that we can.”
Similarly in University Village, Residence Life reported approximately 1,100 students and 583 parking spots spots.
There are five different multilevel parking structures proposed in the university’s future plans; however, they will not be built for several years until APU has the funding. The last of the structures is anticipated to be built 25 years from now, Bixby said.
For now, SGA is seeking options to alleviate the problem sooner rather than later.
“In our initial meetings, we met with Jon Wallace and we asked him what was the main concern of the university for this year, and parking was the first thing he thought of,” said senior math major Kara Nelson, SGA’s financial controller.
Some possible solutions SGA is entertaining range from looking into ZipCar, an hourly rental car system used at many other colleges and universities, to providing carpool passes for commuter students.
Additionally, SGA is trying to revive a resolution they passed in 2011 to squeeze in a few more parking spots.
“If you go in University Village, all the lines are painted in a U shape,” Nelson said. “So, if they were to resurface, repaint and do a single line, it would add [from] 10 [to 40] parking spaces just in UV. So something like that is what we want to bring back to the table with (the Office of) Campus Safety, because it was published in the Clause and it had a lot of backing and support, but for whatever reason it was never followed up on the following year and it was never completed.”
Additionally, SGA is looking into ideas that could decrease the number of freshmen with cars. According to Nelson, Westmont shuttles its students to popular places such as the beach since freshmen are not allowed to have cars on its campus. SGA is looking into the possibility of following suit.
Additionally, once the Los Angeles County Metro finishes expanding its Gold Line to Azusa in the next year or so, students will be able to easily access the Metro and the need to bring cars will lessen.
“Once the Gold Line opens, students will have access to go a lot more places that they would used to need a car to go to,” Nelson said. “I believe the station will be walking distance; it’s relatively close by.”
All ideas to alleviate parking on campus are still tentative.
“I get the fact that it’s a huge inconvenience, so I think that’s probably where most of the drama, the tension, the angst comes from,” Bixby said. “[For] any place that has grown a lot, like we have, parking is always going to be a challenge and you’re not going to be able to park in the most convenient spot.”
For students who have more ideas or thoughts about parking or other issues at APU, SGA encourages them to go to the monthly Cougar Walk Talks.
“[It’s a time] for all students to kind of write down their ideas, share them, talk with our senators and kind of get it in their ear making sure that what we’re doing is in line with what the students really want,” Nelson said.