Each day, it seems that student parking spots are fought over on campus. Students seem to take issue with parking space availability, and their criticisms are supported by studies conducted by Pitt-Johnstown faculty and students.

Professors and students in the Geography Department use a drone to study occupancy in campus parking lots.

Students in civil engineering professor Maher Murad’s fall transportation class and lab determine whether the lots meet the capacity for which they are designed, and they analyze them for operation and capacity.

Their results indicate that the some lots are heavily occupied and could use enlarging. Although a few lots are underused, others are constantly at full capacity.

Additionally, if Pitt-Johnstown students cannot find adequate parking on campus and park at Penn Highlands Community College, their cars can be towed.

We are told there are enough parking spots on campus. The issue is that the spots are often not in the right places for the students. This is a longstanding problem.

Pitt-Johnstown administrators, if given the chance, should take notice of these studies and devise a practical solution.

Pitt-Johnstown administrators may not feel the pressure to take action when it comes to student parking lots. Perhaps this is due to the reality that administrators do not face the same crowded parking lots.

However, students face the problem of parking daily, and they care about this issue. If faculty and students were able to come together with the administrators, we believe they would be able to solve, or at least improve the parking issue.

We trust that if the administrators utilize the ample data collected by faculty and students, they would find it easy to understand the reality students who park on campus face.

The information is available. Let’s use it.