Students who drive to UFV for classes need a place to park. When parking is the limitation on education, that becomes a problem that the university needs to prioritize.
Last Wednesday, the Abbotsford Centre hosted PAW Patrol Live! during the morning and afternoon, when most classes were taking place. Performances took place at 10 a.m., 2 p.m., and 6 p.m., and students and professors reported having difficulty both entering the campus and finding parking as early as 8:30 a.m.
The university was aware that this would cause a major disruption; the commuter alerts webpage warns those at UFV to “be advised parking will be heavily congested on this day.” A parking advisory was posted in the usual locations: on the website and on UFV Announce blog. But it appears that a warning email was only sent out to UFV staff, not to students who would be the most disrupted by the increased traffic.
Event attendees were only restricted from parking in four lots on the Abbotsford campus: two of those were staff lots and one was the small parking lot directly in front of Building K. The only student lot restricted was the gravel lot, where a student parking pass is required.
If students are paying to attend university, and especially if they are paying for a parking pass, they should expect to be able to find a place to park within 30 minutes of entering the campus. This feels like the minimum expectation, but most of us who have driven have experienced the mind-numbing dance around the parking lot at least a few times. Many students have been late for class because of lack of parking, and in classes where participation counts toward your grade, this is not acceptable.
Parking at UFV is not a new issue. Editorial and opinion pieces have filled The Cascade the last few Septembers as part of our accidental back-to-school tradition of complaining about parking. When every student attends their classes, there is not a reasonable amount of parking to accommodate.
Generally, shows at the Abbotsford Centre are not disruptive to classes; they take place in the evening, when the majority of classes are over, or students are already parked.
PAW Patrol Live! was shown to be popular back in September, when the organizers added an additional showing due to demand. While it is difficult to estimate how many cars were brought to the university campus because of the shows, the Abbotsford Centre reportedly has a seating capacity of around 7,000. UFV has an on-campus parking capacity of around 1,900 stalls.
In their 2016 master plan, the university has claimed that they have sufficient parking capacity for an increased full-time student population of 7,831 and general demand is between 1,570 to 1,620 stalls.
Numbers can tell you a lot, but can’t paint the whole picture. Parking at UFV when there is an event or even slightly increased demand is an issue that affects students and faculty on campus. UFV needs to provide proper notification for students when a disruption of this size will take place. Finding a parking spot in a reasonable amount of time should be the rule, not the exception, even on the busiest days.
Image: UFV Cascade
