Dude Where Can I Park my Car?

Quinnipiac University has about 5400 undergraduate students, 2000 of which, approximately, live off campus. This means each and every day about 2000 students need to get to campus to go to class, meetings and a variety of other activities. Quinnipiac’s North Lot parking lot, located off Mt. Carmel Avenue, is generally where these cars are expected to park. Once this lot, and the lot to the right, which is reserved for commuter carpools, is full students are expected to park down the road at the Hogan Road parking lot. 

View Larger Map

As you can see from this map, the Hogan Road commuter lot is a significant distance from the Mt. Carmel campus and ultimately from the University’s buildings where classes are held. The University has provided shuttles from Hogan Road Lot to North Lot, on Mt. Carmel’s campus, but often these shuttles take about 10 minutes to complete the trip. These 10 minutes can mean the difference between getting to class on time and being late.

Many seniors work and therefore cannot afford to come to campus all day for classes they have in the afternoon or stay in between morning and night classes. Each situation is different, but most times commuting students prefer to come for their classes and then leave. The parking situation often hinders this desire.

“The commuters get the short end of the deal no matter how you look at it. Why can’t York Hill students be required to take a shuttle just like other resident students from Whitney Village and other satellite parking lots?,” said Jaclyn Hirsch, a senior print journalism major.

Students from Whitney Village, according to Quinnipiac regulations, are not allowed to drive their cars onto campus until after 4 p.m., and before that are forced to take a shuttle that runs every half hour from Whitney Village to the Mt Carmel campus. The York Hill residents will also have an option of the shuttle, but will be allowed to park on campus whenever they like, as per an open forum with Ron Colavolpe that took place in April to discuss the changes at York Hill. The shuttles from York Hill will only run until 8 p.m. on weekdays and not at all on weekends. This means that in addition to commuters and students living off campus, students living at York Hill will also be placed in the North Lot parking lot next semester.

For some students the issue of number of spots is really not the issue at all, it’s safety.  Genna Kornweiser, a senior public relations major, feels that situation is really “not bad if only students would drive a little slower and adhere to directional signals.”

All in all these are kinks which will have to be worked out as the University continues to grow and expand in the coming year and in the future, and students will simply have to continue working their schedules around the ever expanding University.