Students look for easy parking on campus

By Bryce Johnson and Jahan Durdyyeva •

PHOTO BY ALLANA POPHAM
Laneatra Brown, Allied Universal security guard, monitors traffic in the library parking garage.

Kelly Zhen, sophomore biology major, often has trouble finding a free parking space on campus.

“It takes forever, especially in the garage, as I always have to go to the fourth floor as all other floors are occupied,” Zhen said.

St Aubyn Lue, special event manager and parking enforcement in Public Safety, said that students have access to about 10,000 parking spaces, including in the Carl DeSantis Building parking lot, the Library and Main Student Parking Garage, the Residence Hall Parking Garage and the Health Professions Division parking garage.

Lue advised students to look for other spaces on campus if the spot they prefer to park in is taken. He also said students can use the Shark Shuttle system to get around campus.

“By registering, you can park anywhere on campus, just not restricted areas, like future parking or anywhere that has signs or those gate items that lift off,” Lue said.

To register their cars on campus for free, students can go to the NSU parking portal on Public Safety’s website. They can have two cars registered at the same time for free.

Daniel Lopez, sophomore communication major, was able to register his car online.

“Registering online was very efficient and easy, because then I just picked up the sticker and that’s it,” Lopez said. “It’s nice that they let you know when you have to renew it via email.”

Lopez often finds parking easily. Sometimes, depending on the building, he has to park farther.

“Most of the time, I find parking, that’s not really a problem,” Lopez said.

However, Mateo Castano, senior biology major, sometimes drives around in circles looking for an empty space. He finds more empty spaces when he comes to campus at 8 a.m., compared to when he comes at 11 a.m.

Castano suggests NSU implement a system similar to the Fort Lauderdale-Hollywood International Airport, where there are red and green markers that indicate whether a parking space is available or not.

“A lot of times, people are just doing laps. They’re doing circles trying to find a parking spot because we can’t see it. We can’t see if the parking spot is open unless we get close to it,” Castano said. “Compared to the airport here in Fort Lauderdale, you know there’s a parking spot because it’ll give you a green sign and you could see it very far.”