Enrollment at Winston Salem State University has now reached nearly 6,000 students. With the increased enrollment, however, comes a scramble among commuting students to find available parking spaces.
Four weeks into the fall semester, some students were frustrated with the parking situation. Many students who have parking decals are having trouble finding proper parking spaces and result is they park illegally.
Whether they have decals or not, cars parked illegally are being ticketed or towed. The lack of parking spaces and mounting parking tickets has many students upset and doubting whether the purchase of a parking decal has any meaning.
“You cannot sell a service that you can’t render. There are more students, faculty, and staff than there are parking spaces,” said Antonio Caldwell, a senior.
Many students are questioning whether or not buying decals is necessary since it does not guarantee a parking spot.
“Student parking is not fair, and if the school is not going to construct more parking spaces, then they should not ticket people who they accuse of parking illegally,” said senior Marcus Gill.
“If they want to issue tickets, they should provide efficient and effective parking services,” said sophomore Desmond Alson. “I have a decal and I continue to receive tickets for parking in the wrong area even when there is no set designated parking facility for us.”
Students are not the only ones fed up with the lack of parking spaces.
“There is no excuse for the faculty to be out of a park[ing spot) upon arrival to campus,” said one person who asked to remain anonymous. “We work here and in order to make this university an effective learning institute, we must be able to arrive to classes and meetings promptly.”
An email sent out to faculty, staff and students from the Campus Police on Friday, Sept. 7, said that WSSU Ram Shuttles would be run continuously from 7 a.m. to 6 p.m. One shuttle will extend its hours until 10 pm.
Michael Johnson, a sophomore commuter student, said that he has parked every day at Bowman Gray stadium but has yet to see a shuttle.
“The main problem,” said Officer Norris Gullick, ” is that students are not purchasing parking decals.”
According to campus police, there are around 2,000 parking spaces across the campus. Student decals are $120 and will continue to go up as tuition and enrollment rise.