Student Government voted Wednesday evening on an initiative to upgrade the parking lot of the Student Health Center for disabled students. The resolution passed with 100 percent support.
Student Government Resolution No. 1, introduced at the Jan. 20 SG meeting, urges the LSU Office of Parking to repaint the handicap parking spots in front of the Dean French House near the SHC on Infirmary Road to make them easier for students to spot.
SGR No. 1 states the spots are “hardly visible” and repainting the parking spots would “reduce ticketing offenses and will provide students and the general public with disabilities more parking spots.”
Senators Ariel Bergeron, Joanie Lyons and Cassidy Riley authored the bill. They said it was important that disabled students be able to access the SHC.
Riley said the only marking for the spots is the fading paint on the concrete. There are no signs designating the spots as handicap parking.
“We had a student approach us about it… she ended up parking [in a handicapped spot] for about two hours and she didn’t even know it,” Riley said.
The parking spots are technically up to code because they are marked and are less than 15 feet from the health center. However, the senators said they feel the spots are not marked well enough for students to realize they are handicap parking.
Undeclared social science freshman Daniel Wolf said he visited the SHC recently and didn’t even notice the paint on the concrete.
“I assumed they were handicapped spots because they were so close to the building, but I didn’t actually see any sign,” Wolf said.
Riley and Lyons said disabled students have mentioned the lack of parking around campus to them before, specifically about other students, intentionally or otherwise, parking in spots reserved for disabled students.
Last semester, SG passed a resolution asking the Tiger Athletic Foundation to enforce the 1990 Americans with Disabilities Act for handicap parking on game days.
Lyons said SG will continue to address areas of campus that need improvement, specifically buildings that need to be renovated. The newly renovated French House for the Roger Hadfield Ogden Honors College, Lyons said, is a building on campus that does meet ADA requirements, but many other parts of campus are still a challenge for disabled students.
“We’re looking at buildings with staircases and no elevators or ramps…a lot of the buildings in the Quad don’t have that,” Lyons said. “Some students can’t even get to their advisors or to go over the classes that they need to graduate.”
The University’s current policy for handicapped students allows accommodations for moving classrooms and meetings to accessible locations if the student presents the proper documentation.
The senators said this bill for the SHC is just one step in making the University more accessible for all students.
“We are continuously investigating things around campus that need to be up to code,” Lyons said.