For Santa Fe College students, getting to campus early has become common practice. As students begin to memorize where and when their classes start, many have mentally added one more item to their calendar: time to circle one of Santa Fe’s 24 parking lots in hopes of finding a spot.
Christopher Talavera, an 18-year-old chemical engineering freshman, circled the lots for 30 minutes on his first day. He was 10 minutes late to class, he said.
The beginning of the semester is often the most chaotic for the Santa Fe parking lots. Adjusting to getting to and from class can be a struggle for students at this time, especially freshmen who are just starting out their college career. With over 15,000 students enrolled, and 2,586 parking spots, students feel the anxiety of getting a spot in time before class.
The busiest times for parking on campus are between 10 a.m. and 1 p.m., according to Talavera, the time when students taking morning classes are leaving and those taking afternoon classes are arriving. Many students have preferences for the time of day they take class, the late morning and afternoon is typically when most students arrive on campus and start their day. Students are often found circling lots trying to find the few spots that get abandoned after other students leave class.
"I'm a freshman, I'm new to everything, and I thought, ‘OK, I'll just come on time,’” he said. “Terrible decision.”
Students have taken to social media over the past two years to advocate for Santa Fe to expand parking on campus.
Now, the school is left to explore options and potential solutions to ease the rise in students’ parking-related anxiety.
Santa Fe released an interactive parking map at the start of the semester to help students locate vacant parking close to their building. It also directs drivers to a grassy overflow lot on campus, which is about a seven minute walk from the food court at the center of campus.
Santa Fe also offers a carpool system, granting one free pass per semester to two students jointly registered at the school’s carpool lot.
Santa Fe has a total of 24 parking lots, not including the overflow and carpool lot; those lots in total contain 2,586 spots for students who do not use disabled or purple heart parking.
The carpool lot, isolated from the school’s other parking options and about a five minute walk from the nearest classroom building, holds 50 spaces, a little less than half of the about 100 spots in each main lot. 100 decals are given to the first 200 students who register at the start of each semester and are free, one decal is allotted per pair. With 50 spots and 100 cars that use the lot each semester, the potential to find parking in that lot is still slim.
Kerra Reilly, an 18-year-old computer science freshman, is among the students using the carpool lot. On days she does not carpool, she usually rides the RTS bus.
“The problem is if you don't find [a spot] around your building, you end up parking on the other side of the school and having to walk all the way around," Reilly said.
Lisa Brosky, Santa Fe’s associate vice president of marketing and communications, said the school is aware of the parking difficulties and is working to find a more permanent solution.
The college is looking into hiring a civil engineer to see if it’s possible to add more spots to existing lots closer to classroom buildings, Brosky said. It’s unclear how many parking spaces this option would open, she added.
“That will be a little bit more convenient for students,” she said.
Contact Lilyanna Collado at lcollado@alligator.org. Follow her on X at @lilyannacollado.
Lilyanna Collado is a junior journalism student and this is her first semester at The Alligator! This semester she is the Santa Fe reporter. When she's not writing she either reading, going to theme parks and spending time with her four dogs.
