Drivers struggling to find a parking spot on campus are not just imagining there is a shortage of available spaces.
Approximately 5,220 parking permits were issued this fall for approximately 3,500 spots, according to parking records provided by DeAnn Jones, coordinator of parking and transportation services.
Complicating matters even further, some lots are also shared with students who live in Worth Hills or on the main campus.
According to an email from Janet Martin, TCU Police administrative assistant, there are approximately 3,200 commuter students this academic year, and approximately 3,500 parking spaces available for commuter students across campus.
However, faculty and staff also use all parking lots designated for commuters.
Martin wrote that approximately 2,020 faculty and staff parking permits were issued this academic year. This brings the total number of permits issued to commuters, faculty and staff up to 5,220 – far more than the 3,500 spaces available.
According to an email from Director of Communications Lisa Albert, Physical Plant officials do not think parking on campus is a problem because there are more parking spaces on campus than the total number of people with campus parking permits.
However, the numbers show that there is an imbalance in the number of parking spaces available for commuter students, faculty and staff.
Students who commute to school said they are dissatisfied with the number and location of parking spaces available for their use.
“The parking here is horrible,” senior math and education major Jacki Burt said. “I hate it. If you are even like a second late from your normal schedule then you are screwed.”
Burt said it takes her about 30 minutes to find a parking space for her 8 a.m. class. She said she also has to leave an hour early for her afternoon class in order to secure a spot.
“I usually try to park in the lot behind Beasley,” Burt said. “If that lot is full I try the one behind it, and if that lot is full then I try the one by Lubbock [Avenue]. If that one is full then I have to go to [the overflow lot], and that has happened to me before.”
Senior English major Hailey Lopez said the parking situation on campus is “terrible.”
“The other day I left my apartment at 8:05 a.m. for my 9 a.m. [class] and I couldn’t find a [spot] close to my class, so I had to park by Lubbock,” she said.
Albert said two additional parking lots are being constructed near Lubbock Avenue. The new lots are designed to offset the loss of parking spaces due to construction projects near the Mary Couts Burnett Library and the Annie Richardson Bass Building.
“The new lots will be for the people [commuters, faculty, staff and reserved] who parked in the spaces that were taken away by construction,” she said.