The Faculty Senate has asked for better parking options for several years now, and beginning Monday, it shall receive some, said Faculty Senate President Kevin Cope.
The faculty and staff parking lot located next to Lockett Hall, behind Allen Hall and across from the Cox Communications Academic Center for Student Athletes will be closed off for B and C permit holders from 4 to 7 p.m. daily, a three-hour extension from the current 7 a.m. to 4:30 p.m. zone restrictions.
The change comes at the request for more faculty parking options for instructors who teach at night, and regularly have trouble finding parking spots near the Quad, Cope said, adding that the raw number of night instructors has grown not only considerably but exponenetially in the recent years.
“One parking lot is not going to fix everybody’s problem,” he said. “But it’ll fix a substantial percentage of the problem.”
Faculty members can purchase either the $500 C-class permits, which guarantee reserved parking, or $250 B-class permits, which allow access to street parking and other selected lots, said Gary Graham, director of the Office of Parking, Traffic and Transportation.
“We were trying to find a lot that would be somewhat centralized that serves all the buildings in the area,” Graham said.
Both Graham and Cope called the hours of operation change an experiment, recognizing the need for others to park in the center of campus as well.
“We have always had the problem that faculty that teach in the evening don’t have a place to park,” Cope said, refuting any claim that the demand for parking is minimal during the late evening hours.
Cope said he has even dealt with the problem himself.
“It’s quite a wasteful situation for people to be circulating inside those gated lots waiting for spaces to open up,” he added.
Across campus, however, about two-thirds of the 90 current C-lot spots outside the LSU AgCenter will be converted into commuter parking, as a result of a request by Student Government, Graham said.
“Not as many people used it,” he added.