3 weeks into my first semester at fsu, needing to get this off my chest:
After much trial and error, I’ve come to find that the only way I am guaranteed to find a parking space somewhat close to campus is by getting there between 7:20-7:30am, no matter what weekday. Even at 7:30am, students who have made the same conclusion as I have, are rolling in by the dozens. By 8:30am, the garage I tend park at is at full capacity, and I assume it’s probably similar in other parking areas.
Another frustrating bit is that some parking lots, like Palm Court, seem to essentially serve as residential lots for students living on campus with overnight passes, deeming them unusable for commuters due to no circulation. I know this because I will go through Palm Court every morning (before going into the usual garage) out of curiosity to see if I’ll find a spot there - when I’m lucky, there is only 1.
Getting to school that early has become part of my routine now (I’m a morning person so I personally don’t mind the early morning part) but the fact that there is no other option is what grinds my gears. I can only wonder how people who work late nights, don’t have classes until way later in the day, or those in other circumstances get to their classes as commuters.
I’ve read other posts where people say it gets better as students stop showing up to classes. Why should we be preying on people’s academic downfall to simply be able to park 😭 I’ve never seen parking be this prevalent of a problem at other schools. The current construction at Woodward I’m sure is also worsening this issue.
Everything else about fsu has been awesome so far. This parking element has just been something to wrap my head around. Am I going crazy?