Interdisciplinary studies senior Wendy Gilley has mobility issues related to end-stage arthritis and other health problems. She said she attends nearly every LSU football game, both home and away, and that LSU has the worst method for handicapped parking.
While attempting to park near Lockett Hall to attend a tailgate, Gilley said one parking employee told her she did not have the right to tailgate because she was handicapped.
“Every step I take is a chore,” Gilley said. “I choose very carefully which steps I do take because what I have is quite limited. I am totally dependent upon where I can park.”
The LSU Student Senate unanimously voted during its Nov. 11 meeting to pass Student Government Resolution No. 23, which requests LSU Athletics and the Tiger Athletic Foundation enforce the 1990 Americans with Disabilities Act in regard to handicapped parking on gameday.
Free handicapped parking for students on gameday is in Lot 409, located near Alex Box Stadium on Gourrier Drive. There also is reserved disabled patron parking, which costs $300 for the season and may require a donation to the Tradition Fund, which consists of donations associated with football, basketball and baseball tickets, according to lsusports.net. A Tradition Fund contribution is required to purchase approximately 45,200 football tickets.
John Ross Maher, coordinator for game/event management-parking operations for LSU Athletics, said there is a shuttle that runs from Lot 409 to Tiger Stadium. He said he hasn’t heard any complaints about the system.
“Our gameday ADA policy is compliant with the Americans with Disabilities Act,” Maher said. “While the spaces are no longer ADA spaces in the reserved lots, we add additional temporary ADA parking to make up for that.”
Jamie Graham, the director of ticketing/parking for TAF, deferred to Maher’s statement and declined to make further comment on the legislation. The legislation was emailed to Graham and Maher, as well as Stacia Moses, an administrative program specialist with LSU Disability Services, and Jeff Campbell, director of LSU Parking and Transportation Services. LSU President F. King Alexander also received the email.
Campbell said LSU Athletics and TAF are primarily in charge of parking operations on gameday, but his department provides support.
The SG resolution said the parking policy violates section 12101 of the ADA, which states “that physical and mental disabilities in no way diminish a person’s right to fully participate in all aspects of society.” In the same section, the act said disabled individuals are often excluded due to “failure to remove societal and institutional barriers.”
The ADA parking guidelines state that handicap accessible parking should be located the shortest distance to an accessible route to an entrance of a facility. The resolution charges that, while the shuttle allows handicapped students to attend the games, it inhibits them from experiencing other parts of gameday, such as tailgating.
Senator Joanie Lyons, one of the resolution’s authors, spoke to the Senate about the legislation before voting commenced. She said Louis Gremillion, the director of transportation for SG’s executive branch, spoke with Campbell about the problem and said students should have access to all handicapped spaces on campus.
Food science and technology senior Alexandra Arceneaux and Gilley, who is an associate justice in the SG judicial branch and the chair of the parking appeals board, also spoke to the Senate before voting. Both told the Senate about problems they have encountered with parking on gamedays.
Gilley said she performed a study for a class on handicapped parking, and the results showed LSU was nowhere near close to being in compliance. She said gamedays make the problems even worse.
“It’s really got to stop,” Gilley said. “We need to be as considerate to our disabled guests and students as we were to South Carolina visitors when they were here for their game.”
Arceneaux, a wheelchair user assisted by a service dog, had experiences similar to Gilley’s. She said she had one particularly bad run-in with parking during her first football game after being in her wheelchair.
She said many of the paths did not have ramps she could use, and the ones that did were often blocked by tailgaters. When she complained about these problems, Arceneaux said she was sent to different officials.
“The parking attendant told me that if I didn’t like it, I could get up and walk around,” Arceneaux said. “I don’t know how someone can look at you in the eyes and tell you that. We’re people, are you kidding me?”
Arceneaux said she has not tailgated or been to a football game since that interaction but believes the attendant is still employed by LSU, and she sees him occasionally.
Interdisciplinary studies senior and wheelchair user Sean Thompson was not at the Senate meeting, but he said his gameday troubles begin during the preceding week.
The barriers used to block the general public as the band and football team march down Victory Hill are usually strewn across sidewalks, Thompson said. Often times, he does not see the sidewalk is blocked until he gets all the way to the top of the hill. He then has to go back down to cross the street.
“The employees that put the guardrails up, they don’t think about blocking the sidewalk,” Thompson said. “That is an issue, too — blocking everything. It sometimes feels like the university does not care about the parking situation.”
Thompson gets dropped off at the games but said he was told he could not be dropped off in Lot 409 without leaving a car there. Because he hasn’t been able to find accessible parking anywhere else, he is dropped of at Walk-On’s Bistreaux and Bar.
He said he’s also had issues where tailgaters parking in the reserved areas park on sidewalk ramps, forcing him to roll his chair through the streets. Now he does not travel up the hill on gamedays because of these issues.
Thompson said he hopes the resolution sparks a change with the parking policy, but he doesn’t expect it will happen soon.
Campbell said he would definitely look into some solutions after the final game of the season. He said one possibility would be for TAF to authorize passes specifically for drivers to drop off handicapped tailgaters.
“In the spring, we’ll try to address some of the issues that the resolution brought up,” Campbell said. “We will certainly work with Athletics and the Tiger Athletic Foundation and try to mitigate any concerns.”

Gallery • 10 Photos

Emily Brauner

LSU interdisciplinary studies senior Wendy Gilley appealed to Student Senate requesting the Tiger Athletic Foundation and LSU Athletics to enforce the Americans with Disabilities Act and allow students to utilize handicapped parking spaces on gameday.