Parking, or lack thereof, has been bothering students at Wayne State College since the beginning of the semester. Students all over campus have grown upset at the lack of parking options on campus.

Students, such as sophomore Evan Arnold consider the filled parking lots an obstacle to getting to class on time.

“I know that when I’m coming back from my home, if I’m not back early, most of the time there isn’t a parking space, and if there is, there are very few,” Arnold said.

The lack of parking on campus especially impacts commuter students or students who go home to their families over the weekends. Given that only so many reserved spaces exist for commuter students, it forces these students to race back to Wayne on Sunday night or early Monday morning. To make matters worse, some students, such as Ethan Berck, have been forced to park in surrounding neighborhoods as a result of the packed parking lots.

“I had to park over by the Lutheran church [Grace Lutheran Church], which is quite a ways away,” Berck said. “It’s a couple blocks away, and I had to walk the entire way here. It’s just very inconvenient.”

Arnold also felt annoyed about his fellow classmates parking off campus. “You want to park on campus because you have a parking permit,” Arnold said. “You want to use it. If you’re just parking off campus, then it’s a waste of money if you buy the permit.”

Faculty members, however, such as Associate Professor Allyn Lueders, don’t see parking as much of an issue.

“I, personally, am not frustrated,” Lueders said. “I arrive on campus at about 7:00 a.m. most days, and at that time, I’m free to park where I want to park.”

It seems, however, that students are not the only ones concerned. WSC Campus Security Director Jason Mrsny, has attempted to provide multiple outlets to curb the parking problem.

“I can tell you that we have Lot 4, which is right up by the hospital,” Mrsny said. “That lot currently has about 150 open spaces in it, and when the construction equipment is moved out of that lot, it will probably open up about 100 plus parking spaces.”

The parking crisis has persisted since the first week of school. With an overall increase of freshman this year, students and faculty both believe this rapid growth serves as the primary reason for the parking issue. In addition, vehicles tend to fill up Lots 1, 9, and 10 the quickest. All of these lots are available to vehicles with valid permits. Mrsny, however, did not see the pattern in Lot 4, despite the fact that Lot 4 is also open to all permitted vehicles.

“Lot 4…it is not full,” Mrsny said. “It hasn’t been full for quite some time.”

Meanwhile, students and staff alike are presenting ideas to curb the parking problem.

“I do believe we have some options to add more parking stalls on campus, and we are exploring that,” Mrsny said. “I’m working with Housing. They’ve sent e-mails to all students that live on campus, and we’ve also put flyers in the residence halls.”

“I don’t know what our budget is, but it would be nice if we added another parking lot, especially for commuters,” Berck said. “One thing that they [Facility Staff] could do is change some of the 15-minute parking to commuter parking.”