Texas A&M students struggle to find open parking spots on campus

By Brieanna Smith, KRHD

Published: August 30, 2023

But he says he sometimes has to drive around the parking lot to find an empty spot.

This makes his bike rides tough when trying to get to class on time.

"Sometimes, the parking lot's full or it takes a while to drive around until someone leaves. Honestly, it's pretty tough unless you get here at 7 a.m.," Lemons said.

Lemons says he experienced the same during his freshman year and can see how a larger student body can make the situation worse.

The university admitted its largest freshman class this year and plans to grow parking as part of its 2017 Campus Master Plan.

But Communications Manager for the Transportation Department Tad Fifer says it does not mean the university will add parking at the same rate the student populations grows.

"Instead, it calls for a balance of providing access through multiple modes of transportation for getting people to and around campus other than single occupancy vehicles," Fifer said.

There are just under 36,000 parking spots around campus with 10,000 dedicated to university staff, and there's not a set amount of parking passes sold to students each year.

Fifer says students can purchase parking passes at any time during the year, but the lot they get the pass for can vary depending on demand like how many permits are renewed by staff and students.

Therefore, the department tries to encourage students to use other modes of transportation like using electric vehicles and bikes, carpooling, riding the bus and utilizing bike-share and ride-share programs.

"So what we’re really trying to encourage everyone to do is to think multi-modally rather than relying on a single mode of transportation," Fifer said.

But Lemons doesn't mind.

He rides his bike to all of his classes anyway.

"My classes are spread out, so I'm either on west, north, east, so literally everywhere, so I kind of just park in the middle and ride my bike everywhere," Lemons said.

There are parking passes still available for Fan Field.

But students can also add themselves to wait lists for the lots they want. The wait lists shift every Monday, awarding students and staff with the spot via email.

There is also hourly parking available on campus, which can be viewed online.

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