With a total undergraduate enrollment of 1,016 students, Presbyterian College is not the largest of schools. Justly, the college would not seem to be one that has problems with traffic or parking, yet there have been numerous instances of students receiving tickets from the campus police for parking in “Faculty” parking spaces.

As of 2016, the campus police, who have been actively studying parking on campus, reported that there were only 1,570 total parking spaces on campus. This number has since decreased with the construction of the new upperclassman housing.

Campus police officer Jon Baker was asked for an approximate estimate of tickets that the PC Campus Police writes to students per month for parking in faculty spaces. “In 2018, 253 citations were written for parking in Faculty/Staff spaces out of a total of 646 citations,” Baker stated. “So far in 2019, 125 citations have been issued for parking in Faculty/Staff spaces.”

We then asked if there was any advice to be had for students attempting to find parking in limited areas without being ticketed. “For students driving to classes on the west campus, I recommend using the Bailey Hall parking lot.  It is usually fairly empty with the hall offline this year. They can also park on the side of the street as long as it is not a yellow zone.  Another option is the gravel cut-through behind the publishing house, health clinic and Moorefield house. Unfortunately, there is no simple solution, and these areas may not be the most convenient.”

Another person interviewed was Alexis Almeida. Almeida is not only a sophomore at Presbyterian College but also a commuter. She was asked how she felt about parking on campus. “Being a commuter at PC, I feel as though the parking here is not the best,” she stated. “Going off of past experiences, I have had the worst luck with parking at times like when I’ve arrived a few minutes late due to traffic and road work.” She has stated that she usually parks in Richardson since that is where most of her classes are held, but when there is no parking, she has to search for parking in other lots like Lauren’s, Smyth and Lassiter that make her even more late to class.

We asked Almeida what she thought was one way PC could help with the parking on campus, “One way I think PC could help with parking on campus as a commuter is if they make special parking tags for all commuters and allow them to have a designated parking lot for just them in a convenient area on campus. That way you can tell if a commuter or non-commuter parks in the wrong parking lot due to lack of wanting to walk a far distance or even to just park their car there when they can’t find a parking spot close to where their classes are.”

The small campus of Presbyterian College may remind people of a small town, but this campus is not immune to the issues that plague larger ones. Unfortunately, as Officer Baker states, “…there is no simple solution…”