Parking Chaos at Humber North Campus

 

Students at Humber College and the University of Guelph-Humber are being forced to walk two kilometres in some cases, as a solution to parking overflow is still yet to be found.

 

The daily parking lots for students are lots six, eight, 10 and the parking garage. 

The numbered lots are consistently full at the beginning of the day, as a result, students with later classes are directed to the eight floor parking garage which is often full.

 

A fourth year Humber student, is frustrated. “Multiple Fridays on campus I’ve been turned away from all the lots and was not given an alternative, I had to wait for a spot to open up which made me half an hour late for class.” 

 

A graduating kinesiology student at Guelph-Humber is annoyed, “Two times, they directed me from the parking garage to the Queen’s Plate lot which is two kilometres away. I walked the first time but the next time they told me that, I just skipped class, it wasn’t worth it to me.”

 

One of the main causes of the lack of parking spaces is due to the construction of the new subway station. The construction has completely closed off lot five, which had a capacity of 515 cars, this lot used to be another option for daily parking students.

 

Returning over 500 spots to daily parkers would immediately fix the overflow. Although, the construction of the subway station will take away a large portion of those spots when reopened. “The station will take away about half of the parking spaces of lot five when it’s finished.” said James Irvine, Manager of Humber Transportation and Parking Services. The approximated 250 parking spots “likely will be taken up by the subway users” he added.

 

Humber’s parking and traffic coordinator said, “Lot five has been closed off for the subway station construction since 2019.” He added, “because of COVID it wasn’t an issue for the most part but now that students have returned to campus we’re seeing the full effects of it.” 

 

Apart from this issue with no apparent solution, the parking staff aren’t on the front lines witnessing the conflict it causes. While the people most affected by the parking chaos may be the students, the parking security officers are taking the brunt of it.

 

“There are many times throughout the week that we have to turn away students because we are out of space. The drivers get mad at us but it is out of our control.” said one security officer who spoke anonymously because they were not authorised to discuss the issue.

 

The security officer said they wished for management to find a solution to this problem as soon as possible, as it is beginning to affect the morale of the security members involved. 

 

Construction for the new subway station is on track to be completed by the 2023-24 school year which will ease the issue, but not completely solve it. What once was 515 parking spaces being reduced to around 250, mixed with subway users’ cars, is not a promising permanent solution to an issue that continues to add unwanted stress for students as they head into midterms.