Gym rats no longer have to wait until parking gets lifted at 3:30 p.m. to work out.
Student Government and UF RecSports have partnered to lift parking restrictions all day at the Bledsoe Drive parking lot until the end of Spring semester. The parking lot is located northwest of Southwest Recreation Center.
Andy Howard, RecSports assistant director of marketing and communications, wrote in an email that there will be a strictly enforced two-and-a-half-hour parking limit.
This pilot program will help SG and RecSports find solutions to parking issues and make Southwest Rec more accessible to students, said UF Student Body President Cory Yeffet.
“After hearing from students for so long, we finally looked into it,” he said.
Yeffet said RecSports wants students to use the gym more, but the lack of parking was an issue.
“Over time, we found that students are going to wait (until parking is lifted) to drive out there,” he said.
Suzette Pellegrino, 22, said she exercises at Southwest Rec almost every day. The UF biology senior said she would have to wait until parking was lifted in the afternoon, and by then it was difficult to find open machines. If she wanted to exercise in the morning, she would have to wait to take a bus.
“I think it was about time they did that,” she said. “I’m glad they lifted it.”
[A version of this story ran on page 3 on 4/2/2015 under the headline “Restrictions on Southwest Rec parking lifted”]
