A new semester brings new worries about finding a parking spot close to class, getting a vehicle towed or getting a ticket. The Vet School/Aster Street bus route will add a new stop in an attempt to alleviate some of these worries. The bus that travels along this path is scheduled to stop at the parking lot across from Alex Box Stadium every 20 minutes to pick up students. “One bus stopping every 20 minutes will not make a difference,” said Bryce Beard, biology junior. “People are not willing to wait that long.” Beard said the shuttle would be effective if it had its own route without additional stops. He said with just one bus and numerous other stops, it is going to be worse to wait than to just walk.”The remote shuttle lot is part of the Master Parking Plan, but we may not need it,” said Gary Graham, Office of Parking, Traffic and Transportation director. “It probably won’t get filled.”The remote shuttle lot should be finished by the first week of school, and it will comprise most of the 600 extra parking spots that have been added since the end of spring semester, Graham said. Lot x174, the lot across from Patrick F. Taylor Hall, has reopened after part of it was resurfaced. The Acadian lot — which was renovated during the summer — is finished. “Overall, the parking department’s changes really work, and they are helpful for cutting down on traffic,” said Jennifer Alford, communication studies instructor. “However, faculty with B [parking tags] still have difficulty finding spots.”Alford said she has to arrive at 8 a.m. to find a parking spot, otherwise she will have to drive around and may be late for class.”I have to come in an hour early,” Alford said. “I would rather sleep in, eat breakfast or drink coffee in that time.”Graham said there are about 23,500 parking spots for the 20,000 students who ordered parking tags for the fall semester. But the number of students ordering parking tags will increase until the middle of September, and spots are further from campus than they were before the implementation of Easy Streets.Graham said the remote shuttle lot is the final place parking spaces will be added for a while. It should account for overspill from parking lots on crowded days.”The next step is renovating existing lots, and next summer the garage will start being built,” he said.The parking garage is also part of the Master Parking Plan and is scheduled to be completed by 2010. The structure is in the design stages and is supposed to go where the Highland Dining Hall stands. It will take the space where the Women’s Center and African American Cultural Center are on Raphael Semmes Road, but spaces for the organizations are being built in the garage. The Civil War Center will also be demolished and moved to Hill Memorial Library.The garage will provide about 750 parking spaces, a quarter of which will be reserved for students, a quarter for faculty and staff and the rest for visitors.Graham said he expects to fill most of the visitor spots with the expansion of the Student Union and the new bookstore, which will be part of the garage. Plans for the future include another parking garage where the Tiger Park currently stands and turning Alex Box Stadium into a parking lot. The Master Parking Plan calls for a re-evaluation in 2010, so more will be decided then. Another parking worry with football season approaching is the question of when cars should be moved before game day. In RV lots, cars must be moved by Friday at 5 p.m. In all other lots, cars must be moved by Saturday at 7 a.m. —-Contact Ellen Zielinski at [email protected]