Students express concern over Lincoln Hall parking

Brenden Williams

With Washburn adding the new dorm Lincoln Hall, scheduled to be finished by the fall of 2016, students have become concerned about a possible issue of parking on campus.

Lincoln Hall is scheduled to be finished and ready for students by next semester, adding nearly 400 students in on-campus housing. The concern by most students, those who live both on and off campus; is that they won’t have any room if a new parking lot isn’t added in the near future.

Associate director of construction services at Washburn, Aaron Epps, said there are three projects currently for new parking lots, two of which are being worked over with contractors and one more currently under design.

How many parking spots will be added has not yet been determined because one of the projects is under design, but with recent spots set aside for the new parking lots, it should be sufficient to hold the new students that will be living on campus.

Ian Fluke, a freshman business major that lives off campus, has trouble finding a spot for his early morning classes and it makes his wake up time even earlier.

“More parking on campus would help me because a lot of the time I have early morning classes. I have trouble getting up and getting to campus, walking the long distance from wherever I happen to find the spot. Also for mid-morning classes there’s never parking. It’s always full and I sometimes have to park off campus and walk a ways. Sometimes I’m on the other side of campus from my class by the time I find a spot, and when I’m running a little late at first, it turns into very late.”

Joe Lewis, a freshman athletic training major living in Lincoln Hall next year, already has trouble finding places to park.

“It would make it easier living on campus,” Lewis said. “As it is right now, there are times with just the LLC, Kuehne and West parking lot, it fills up and I can’t find a place to park during the day. If we were to add a whole other residence hall that’s supposed to carry somewhere around 380, 400 students, without adding any parking, it would create a total mess.”

Lewis went on to say the other parking lot will be a much needed addition to Lincoln Hall.