Parking tickets increase across campus, students blame less parking spaces

Students have been struggling to find parking spaces around the College’s campus, with many students receiving parking tickets for parking in spaces assigned to faculty or visitors.

According to James Shropshire, director of Campus Safety, about a third of all parking spaces on campus are reserved for student parking. 

“At the start of every term, there’s usually an increase in ticketing as everyone readjusts to campus life,” Shropshire wrote in an email to The S&B. Shropshire wrote that due to some parking spaces being occupied by construction projects and materials, there has been an increase in the volume of parking tickets.

Shropshire added, “There hasn’t been much change to the overall availability of parking since completion of the Charles Benson Bear `39 Recreation and Athletic Center (Bear) project in the years 2010 and 2011.” The last major change in parking lot designations was in 2022, Shropshire wrote. 

“The bigger problem was that … there was nowhere else to park,” Makaila Hootman `25 said, who was ticketed for parking in a faculty parking space in the Bear parking lot. “I feel like it’s not necessarily Campus Safety’s fault. I feel like they’re just doing their job.”

Sasha Fine `27 also received two tickets for parking in a space in the Bear parking lot labeled as faculty parking.“I had my car last semester, and I parked there no problem.”

“[I] didn’t get any emails that I was getting ticketed,” Fine said.

Students also said the location of parking lots across campus are inconvenient. (Marc Duebener)

“I’ve been parking there for a couple years and never gotten a ticket,” Grace Wagner `26 said, who received two tickets for parking her car in a space in the Harris Center parking lot.

Many students expressed concern about the availability of parking. “I don’t think there’s enough of it [parking],” Wagner said. “I know a lot of people who park in lots that aren’t specifically for students,” added Wagner. 

“I think there’s a larger problem of allowing more students on campus and allowing more vehicles to be parked on campus, but parking spaces not increasing,” Hootman said.

Students also said that the location of parking spots available to them posed an inconvenience. “It’s pretty challenging, at least if you live in North campus, to find a spot that’s close to you,” Wagner said.

.sno-pullquote-670c9840d1a5c { display: flex; float: none; margin: 30px auto; width: 100%; border-color: #888888; border-top-width: 5px; border-right-width: 5px; border-bottom-width: 5px; border-left-width: 5px; background-color: #dddddd;}.sno-pullquote-670c9840d1a5c p.pullquotetext,.sno-pullquote-670c9840d1a5c p.quotespeaker { color: #000000 !important;}.sno-pullquote-670c9840d1a5c .pullquotepic { width: 250px; margin-left: 25px;}.sno-story-body .sno-pullquote-670c9840d1a5c p.pullquotetext { font-size: 22px; line-height: 1.4em;}.sno-pullquote-670c9840d1a5c .quotebar { background: #dddddd; flex: 0 0 90px; margin-top: -15px; margin-left: -15px; padding-left: 15px; padding-top: 15px; margin-right: 15px;}.sno-pullquote-670c9840d1a5c .largequote {color: #888888;}.sno-pullquote-670c9840d1a5c .quotebody { width: 100%;}

“There’s also a safety aspect to it too. Do I really need to be walking all the way across campus at 10 at night after I parked my car for the night, just because there’s not a parking spot near where I live?” Hootman said.

According to the Grinnell College website, the parking lots available for students are at 1023 and 1019 Park St. 1217 and 1221 Park St., across the street from Main Hall, Read, Haines, James and Cleveland Halls, Norris and Cowles Halls, north of Rathje Hall and at Campus Safety.