Have Your Say: Student Parking
By Ellen Yoshitsugu
ellenyoshi@gmail.com
We asked students: What are your thoughts on parking availability for City College students?
Darryl Evans
“The EV pumps here on our campus are pretty slow as they are, and some of them are inoperable, whereas it’s difficult for us to get parking. For example, you got to get here at like seven o’clock in the morning. Sometimes I can’t get here until eight and class is at nine. And the pumps are taken and are either down or they’re running too slow where you know it’s really problematic when you’re driving in. Sometimes I park in handicap zones, but I have to get a charge.
I’ve complained about it. They took one out of service over there, and I did explain that this is a problem for other students. At least tag it out if it’s not working, because people think, well, it’s working, yeah, you’re sitting there for hours trying to get someone to respond to you, and then the classes are going on, you’re late and professors are not going for that.
They have EV stations where you can get the high power, the closest one is here at the Whole Foods, right down in the tunnel there. Yeah, they’re not working. They haven’t been working the whole semester. I’m like, wow, that’s really a slap in my face. Yeah, all that money.”
Carmen and Faye
“My name is Carmen. I want to be a preschool teacher. I don’t really have problems parking but sometimes when I come here late, I find the parking difficult.”
“So right now, I haven’t decided what I am interested in yet. I just want to improve my English. I haven’t had this kind of situation because maybe I come early, but usually, like when I come here this morning there’s still some space left on this side, but I’m not quite sure about the other side. Tuesday and Thursday we park here, and Monday and Wednesday, we park over there, because I have a different classroom.”
Student Chancellor Malinalli Villalobos
“So what I hear from students is that they have difficulty getting parking spots throughout different times of the day. One thing that I have heard from students, just standing here in this particular spot, is when they’ve tried to purchase a parking spot from the bursar’s office, the bursar’s office has told them, ‘we’re not no longer selling parking passes, because we’re at capacity.’
And so now that we are losing parking spaces, and it all started with losing the public parking here on Frida Kahlo. They’re having to park at different parts of the community. I have heard of students trying to park at the commercial businesses that we have here, but also risking the possibility of getting towed, whether it be McDonalds or Whole Foods.
Once we get to start building Rivera theater or the performance theater, we’re gonna have less spaces as well. When we have commencement, where are people gonna park, right? So it’s all leading to less parking spots, more student frustration. Students then take that lateness into classrooms. And that’s unfortunate.
Even with public transit, we at City College don’t have an avenue to have free transport either. The reduced transfer that we do have is not through the college, but through a program, whether it be Muni, whether it be Bart, or whether it be any of our other agencies, maybe something for local income folks.
We see them circling and circling, not having parking spots, and being here at this door, we get students that are saying, ‘Hey, can we park here?’ And we have to tell them this is a faculty parking site.
Then the student is put in a place where they ask themselves, ‘Do I take a chance of getting a citation? Do I get a chance of getting towed at the commercial buildings? Or do I not make it to class?’ “
Jennalyn and Elsie
“I think sometimes, because we’re nursing students, we get here really early in the morning, most of the time, or sometimes, and then it’s like empty. Fridays it’s mostly empty. Oh, I believe I come, like, 30 minutes early before class. I never use the lower lot, it’s too expensive.”