Students with senior standing began purchasing parking permits for the 2024-2025 academic year on July 24, and many noticed changes made to the university’s Parking and Transit Services.

Emma Boden, a sophomore animation game design major at the university’s Tuscarawas campus, said she went on to Parking Services’ website to purchase a permit at 11 a.m. that day and waited in the website’s queue for about an hour.

“I got all the way through the check process, I put all my information and everything went through,” she said. “Then, I got an error saying it wasn’t in my basket and I didn’t get the permit.”

She repeatedly tried to purchase a permit but received the same error. When Boden checked her bank account, she said she found the purchases removed money from her account.

Boden said she did not want to lose more money, so she stopped attempting to buy a permit and decided to wait to call Parking Services.

“Overall just very stressful and overwhelming… I did end up getting the lot that I wanted, so it worked out in the end,” she said.

Boden said she is not the only student who faced issues while obtaining a permit as other students have shared their frustration on YikYak and other social media platforms.

“I saw a lot of complaints on YikYak and the Snapchat story about it,” she said. “Some of the people were going through what I was going through.”

Meredith Garrett, the interim manager of Parking and Transit Services, said Parking Services is willing to work with students, like Boden, who faced challenges while buying a permit.

“If [students] have an issue, just call or email us,” she said. “It is a busy time right now and we do have high demand, but we want to fix whatever issue it was. So, just keep trying until you get a hold of somebody.”

There were no changes made to how permits are bought and the prices have not changed since fall 2020, Garrett said. 

She said the only major change was students are no longer allowed to park in R-16 lots, which are near Crawford and White Halls.

A few people, like Boden, waited in the website’s queue for a period of time before buying a permit. Garrett said there is a possibility the vendor, who hosts the website, made a change to the queue process.

“[The change] is probably to eliminate some backend issues with processing too many [purchases] at one time,” she said. “That is definitely something I will look into for the future.”

In the year previous, there were just under 10,000 student permits sold. This year, Parking Services has sold about 7,000 student permits and 3,000 faculty permits, Garrett said.

With the opening of Crawford Hall, Garrett said drivers should expect that side of campus to be more congested during the beginning of the semester.

“It also affects where students may park in that area, so I would anticipate congestion on the front side of campus,” she said.

Before the pandemic, the university planned on building a parking deck, where the new Crawford Hall is, but the plans changed. However, Garrett said Parking Services is still looking to create more parking lots.

“We are constantly looking into how we can expand and where we can expand,” she said. “The front side of campus is pretty lamont, so it makes it kind of challenging.”

While Parking Services looks to expand, Ally Eclarin, co-owner of State Champs, said the coffee shop is looking to relieve the frustration from obtaining a permit or receiving a parking ticket.

“Just being in college and being that student who’s just trying to survive, and the campus stuff on top of it, like, we’re very aware how hard it is to get your permit,” she said.

With this awareness, Eclarin said State Champs offered a 15% discount during August for customers who came in with a parking ticket. The discount cannot be combined with other discounts.

“For us, we wanted to alleviate the stress and make it one less thing,” she said. “Basically acknowledge the fact that campus parking is tricky, complicated and stressful for students that are already trying to do their best.”

Adriana Gasiewski is a reporter. Contact her at [email protected].