Commuter students frustrated with closure of Parking Garage 2

On Friday, Sept. 1 at 6 a.m, parking garage two at Florida Atlantic University (FAU) was closed leaving only the first floor open for students to park. It is scheduled to open up again for full parking again on Friday, Dec. 15 at 6 p.m. 

According to an announcement made on the FAU website, the parking garage was closed for construction and renovation. According to Joshua Glanzer, the associate vice president of media relations and public affairs, Parking and Transportation Services staff disclosed that the garage was closed due to structural construction repairs. 

Many students have expressed hardship regarding the closing of Parking Garage Two, considering the troubling parking situation already occurring. 

Since the beginning of the fall semester, students say they have found it difficult to find parking in any of the lots, often circling around for 30 or more minutes or parking in lots they are not supposed to. The closing of the parking garage has only furthered this issue and contributed to longer commute times from parking lots to classes because of the distance between them, as well as longer school-to-work commute times. 

“I have to commute from work to school on Tuesdays and now it takes an extra 30 minutes to find parking at all and being late to class. I have to leave early from work and lose money I make for the inconvenience of the school not being able to notify and accommodate parking. It has become a hassle, so I might have to consider Uber from work to avoid spending extra time looking for parking and getting to class on time,” wrote Michelle Rivas, a first-year graduate student, in a statement to the UP. 

For students who usually park in garage two, the distance they now have to walk to class has caused excessive lateness and missing information taught at the beginning of class. Not only have they been late to class because of parking, but they also have had to miss class completely due to the lack of spots.

Students say their professors started out more lenient with tardiness due to parking but as the semester continues, they have only gotten more strict about the consequences of arriving to class late.

“I’m almost 30-45 minutes late to my classes just looking around for a spot. Thankfully, my professors have not been super strict about being late since they are coming in late as well,” said senior Nati Angel. 

Students are also confused as to why construction could not have been done at a different time since the fall semester is usually when the campus is most populated. 

“There were lots of times that could have been chosen to work on the garage, why choose an entire semester? Why not do it over summer, or even over winter break so it wouldn’t take the whole semester? Unless there was some emergency that needed to be fixed immediately that they aren’t telling us about, they should have had this done during summer,” said student Madeline King. 

Madison Denizard is a contributing writer for the University Press. For more information on this article or others, you can reach Madison at madison.denizard@gmail.com or DM her on Instagram @mpaigee_