Belated Blog Post #2: Parking Problems at EMU

When job candidates for different positions come to campus, my standard “tell all” statement is this: I like working at EMU quite a bit, but I really get annoyed with the building I work in (Pray-Harrold) and I also get really annoyed with the parking situation.

Parking is a common problem at just about every college or university, but it’s a big deal here because EMU is fundamentally a commuter school. I don’t know what the statistics really are, but I’ll bet about two-thirds of our students drive five or more miles to get to school (which is quite a bit different from that liberal arts school in Ann Arbor), and some of these students drive a heck of a lot farther than five miles. The same goes for the faculty. My wife and I are somewhat unique in our department in that we can walk to school, though the fact of the matter is we often don’t (too much stuff to carry back and forth, bad weather often makes walking unpleasant, neither one of us walks when we teach at night, etc.)

So, you’d think that there would be a fair amount of attention to the plight of commuters, or rather, of parkers. Sadly, not enough. Part of the problem is there just are not enough parking spaces. But in my opinion, the bigger problem is that there is not enough parking enforcement.

Broken parking gate

Here’s a photograph of part of what I mean. For some reason, it is near routine for the gates at the enterance to various parking lots to either be broken like this or to be raised entirely. And just to make the obvious even more obvious: if the gate is broken or otherwise doesn’t work and if this happens all the time, then that more or less defeats the purpose for having a gated parking lot in the first place. I took this picture with my cell phone last Tuesday; the gate was still broken on Friday, and I would bet a month’s salary that it will be broken when I go into work today.

There’s also the problem of a serious lack of enforcement, and everyone knows that this is a problem. It’s fairly common for students and others to park illegally in the faculty/staff lot that is near the building where I work. I understand why students do this, but if I had done this at my undergraduate institution (and actually, I didn’t have a car as an undergrad), I would have certainly have been towed away.

It’s worth noting that if EMU really wants to enforce parking, they can. For example, faculty and staff can buy a parking spot. I’m not sure how much money it is, though I do know it’s hundreds of dollars and there is a fairly long waiting list to get a spot. As far as I can tell, one would pity the fool who parks illegally in one of these golden ticket spots.

Now, one of the things that’s potentially interesting about all of this is that one of the issues (supposedly) on the table for the next faculty union contract talks has to do with parking. Essentially, faculty don’t pay for their own parking right now– or rather, faculty receive parking as part of their current benefits package. As I understand it, the administration wants to start charging faculty what they charge students– I believe $75 a semester, though it might be less– for faculty/staff spots.

We’ll see if that actually comes to pass; I have my doubts. But if the administration is successful in charging faculty for parking, then:

  • I’d rather pay a few hundred dollars a year to guarantee that I have a spot;
  • They’d better fix the gates; and/or
  • A lot more faculty (including me) will just walk.

5 thoughts on “Belated Blog Post #2: Parking Problems at EMU”

  1. I have a premium personal parking space and I LOVE it. Although it costs rather a lot–$480 /year–it’s worth every penny. Instead of arriving at 8am to teach an 11am class, I can arrive whenever I please and I don’t have to schedule my day around getting a parking space. Also, I can leave campus and return without having to circle for an hour or so. Linda A-K and I have spaces next to each other which makes parking even funner.

  2. I was thinking about this today when I came into school– I had to park a lot by the Tower Inn and I walked by the pay lot near Pease auditorium. Basically, you can park there all day, from 8 am to 10 at night, for $6 or something like that. Less if you are only here for part of the day. So it seems to me that if you just paid as you go for parking– especially if, during the day, you were willing to walk a bit– you could actually park pretty reliably for a lot less than $480 or so.

    In any event, we’ll see what the next contract brings. But I’d have to say that if I was asked to pay more than $50 a semester for parking, I’d probably say “no thanks” and take my chances with the paylots and parking illegally. Which is a whole different post….

  3. Well, as you say, it is cheaper to pay as you go, and I have friends on campus who do just that. However, I often don’t have cash with me and even the pay lots are full lots of the time. I used to park in the Ford lot next to the premium personal parking space lot, but that got old fast when I had to get here earlier and earlier to get a space. My guess is that parking will be the least of our worries with the new contract. More problematic will be health care and our share of the costs as well as salary.

  4. Yes parking has become more difficult. For almost 30 years I able to park in Summit or Sheridan and just walk over to campus. Now, a residential permit is required so I’m forced into the McKenny Lot.

  5. Well, I would agree that insurance will probably be more important than parking. Though in a weird way, I think that insurance will be an easier issue to reach an agreement about, and also in a weird way, parking kind of hits the bottom-line more directly, too.

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