WSU Everett Parking Lot

Changes come to WSU Everett parking lot
As EVCC starts their fall quarter, facility managers and staff try and ease parking troubles

WSU Everett students and staff can expect parking changes to ease parking issues this fall in the lot directly located outside the University Center as Everett Community College (EVCC) begins their fall quarter this week.

The biggest change comes with the amount of regular parking spots that are available. Facility managers and security plan on reducing the number of staff parking spots to open up more parking for students.

“We gave a five percent overshot on the amount of staff parking,” said Bobby Christenson, the facility manager for the WSU Everett campus, about how they delegated parking spaces last fall when the University Center opened. “We’re starting to realize that not all staff is here at the same time.”

With some staff only teaching on certain days, it is allowing staff to share parking spots instead of each having their own. Additionally, if all the staff spots are taken once the staff spots have decreased, staff is still able to park in student parking without being ticketed. With parking currently, if all regular spots are taken and a student can only find a staff spot, they will be penalized.

“If a student parks in a staff spot, they will get a ticket,” said Christenson, “If staff parks in a student spot, they wont.”

Parking has been an issue for the University Center since it’s opening last August. It is home to both WSU Everett and four other universities and operates in a parking lot that is open to EVCC students as well. According to the education section on U.S. News, EVCC has around 7,000 students enrolled each quarter and while the campus has 12 parking lots, it still is hard for students to find parking.

“I was an EVCC student a few years ago and I know it’s tight,” said Melody De-Lappe, the new WSU building admin assistant who started this fall. “So far [this week] it has been okay.”

WSU Everett has around 235 enrolled students this fall semester, according to Christenson and while not all students are on campus at the same time, it has left many students wondering how they will find parking while having to compete with the thousands EVCC students.

One way EVCC and WSU Everett staff is being proactive about the parking situation is by monitoring the cars located in the parking lot outside the University Center. “They gave us car numbers to check,” said Candice Timmons, a security guard at the University Center.

Timmons explained that with the numbers, they plan on comparing the amount of WSU Everett students, University Center students and EVCC students to see who is really using the parking lot.

Furthermore, security and building facility had a meeting last week to discuss how to handle the influx of students the first week of EVCC’s quarter. “The meeting was about being understanding the first week,” said De-Lappe.

In addition to the adjustment to parking spots, EVCC has also installed new parking pass meters this fall. Students are able to purchase parking passes by the hour, three hours, five hours or 8 hour increments if they do not already have a parking pass. The new parking meter is located in parking lot K, which is the parking lot surrounding the University Center building and can be seen in the image above.

Earlier this year in May, EVCC also began allowing students and staff to purchase parking passes online. This allows students to not have to go into EVCC’s cashiers’ office each quarter to purchase a new parking pass. However, this option is only available for EVCC students.

Another change to parking lot located outside the University Center is a new crosswalk on the SE end of the buildings property as shown in the photo above. Christenson installed the crosswalk to lead directly to both a student and staff parking lot.