Commuter Crisis: Students and Staff struggle to find available parking spots on campus

All students who choose to drive their cars to campus are able to purchase parking permits through the Lewis & Clark website. But since the beginning of the fall semester, students have been struggling to find parking, even after they have purchased a permit. Many have spent a considerable amount of time driving through LC’s campus, scanning every parking lot for available spots.

Ebtehal Yahya ’22, who has been commuting to LC from Southwest Portland for the past four years, said that limited parking has greatly affected her daily commute

“I get to campus around 10 a.m. on Mondays, Wednesdays and Fridays, and on those days it’s extremely difficult to find parking,” Yahya said. “It’s the worst that it’s been so far.”

According to Parking and Transportation Manager Gabriel Montez, there is currently no parking issue based on the data from week one of the fall semester. He explained that there was available parking at the Graduate campus in the past week, and that CAS students could park there. There are also parking spaces available for LC students at Saint Mark’s Church. 

“We are expecting to have a shortage of parking, however, looking at the data from the first week, of all three colleges being on campus,” Montez said. “We were not at full capacity.” 

The price of parking has increased in the past year, increasing from $360 per year to $374 per year. Even if students purchase a parking pass, they are not guaranteed a parking spot.

“We post on the webpage that parking is not guaranteed if you buy a permit, unfortunately,” Montez said.

 According to Yahya, $180 is a steep price to pay for a college one is already attending. 

“I think the price is too high to justify.” Yahya said. 

David Ernevad, associate vice president for facilities, said that originally LC and the city of Portland functioned under the conditional use master permit plan. However, this year the city of Portland and LC now have the transportation demand and management plan. One of the agreements of this plan is that LC will increase the price of parking by 4% each year. 

“Part of the concept behind that is that they want to help drive down the use of fossil fuel and parking, (and)commuting and parking becomes a big piece of that puzzle for them.” Ernevad said. “One of the ways driving down commuting is achieved is through increasing the cost to park.” 

In order to accommodate future students, the LC Parking and Transportation department is making plans to help students find parking. 

“We are working to add more parking now,” Ernevad said. “We have just engaged with an engineering firm to design an 88 stall lot at the Graduate campus, where we have some space to add parking.”

Both Montez and Ernevad suggested that students budget time more wisely in order to find parking and arrive to class on time. Oftentimes, students coming to class 5-10 minutes beforehand may not have sufficient time to locate parking, especially considering the amount of time it takes to walk to the academic side of campus  from farther lots.

Both of the staff members of the Parking and Transportation department at LC mentioned the Pioneer Express, the TriMet and biking as alternative options to driving. 

“We have a tremendous number of bike parking spots on campus.” Ernevad said. “We have on the border of 900 biking spots on campus.” 

While biking is a great option, Montez emphasized the importance of taking advantage of the Lewis and Clark busing system, the Pioneer Express.

“Furthermore, all of our resources and all of our efforts with parking go into other transportation needs,” Montez said. “For example, the Pioneer Express is one of the largest, under-utilized things that we offer on campus.”

For the time being, alternative transportation, arriving early and taking advantage of available parking lots are the primary solutions for commuter students. Until LC comes up with a better solution, students will continue to struggle on their daily commutes.

Photograph by David Allen