Parking at the University of Denver is a big headache for anyone who owns a car on campus. At Colorado College, it’s an even bigger issue for the freshmen because life for any freshman at CC doesn’t include a car.
When CC found itself with fewer and fewer parking spaces on campus three years ago, the administration decided that first-year students wouldn’t be allowed to bring cars.
The college found that with 150-170 cars out of the picture, parking congestion disappeared and the no-car rule was beneficial to the students in other ways.
“[The students were] better off without cars for academic and other reasons,” said David Lord, manager of business and auxiliary services. The college wanted to “keep them here on campus.”
To further ensure that all CC students stayed close to campus, the college built new apartments on campus and created a three-year living requirement. This brought 80 percent of the students back to living on campus, Lord said.
With the upperclassmen on campus, Lord said that the freshmen were better able to benefit from their leadership and experience.
Lord said the class lines were knocked down and students began to mingle together through rush, clubs and sports teams. The relationships between upper and lower classmen also enabled the freshmen to hitch a ride with an upper classman.
Also, if freshmen did need a ride, the school had a fleet of vans for them to rent. A group could check out a van as long as they had a college-approved driver to drive the van.
The college also ran shuttles to the ski areas and to the airports to give students a lift.
However, what seemed like a good idea on paper did not turn out to be the perfect solution though, Lord said.
Freshmen soon discovered that when ski season hit, they wanted their cars at school and began to bring cars during the spring term. They would then park their cars on neighborhood streets. This in turn created angry neighbors who were unable to park on their own streets.
To combat the problem CC has asked the Colorado Springs Police Department to trace the license plate numbers of vehicles that were parked on the streets.
The college would then contact the driver to remove the car. Lord said that he is unsure what the college can do to freshmen who park on the streets since they are public property.
The college also has paid for one-third of the cost of building a trolley system to run between the college and downtown to provide the students with alternative transportation that is free for the community.
The experience has, however, taught the college one thing.
“We’ve learned cars are pretty important,” Lord said.
As a result, Lord said the college plans to review the freshman parking issue next year.
One of the solutions that Lord said the college will look into will be beginning to charge for parking and using the parking fees to build more parking facilities on campus.
