I wanted to bring this issue to the attention of anyone at UNF who might be willing to listen. I am aware that parking issues have been brought forward plenty of times, but I feel that, perhaps, after enough contact efforts, the students’ concerns may be viewed as more than a simple complaint but as a plea for safety.

I am an alumni of UNF. I spent my four years of undergraduate work here and am now a proud student of the Doctorate of Physical Therapy program, where I will dedicate another three years to UNF. In that time, I have seen the degeneration of our parking situation to dismal levels.

I am not complaining about the lack of parking. The reason I felt the necessity to contact someone is because of the safety hazards that present themselves at the prime traffic time on campus and the lack of security to stop such behaviors. In the past week alone, I have personally spent over two hours in search of parking spots and have been in situations that, under normal driving rules, would have been considered illegal.

Yet our university does nothing to stop these behaviors. During one incident, I was in the right hand lane with my turn signal on to indicate a spot I intended to take. The car behind me drove into oncoming traffic and pulled up beside me and slightly ahead to prevent me from pulling into the spot. He stopped his car there until the parked car moved, meanwhile stopping both my lane and oncoming traffic in the process.

Recently, a similar incident occurred. I refuse to drive in the garage next to the library because of the numerous near-missed accidents I have experienced in that garage because of people’s fervent desire to find a parking spot.

These incidents, like mine, are not the only ones. I have only witnessed one accident, luckily with only one car backing up into barricades in his attempt to turn around to steal a spot. This move not only blocked all traffic but damaged the barricade on the first floor of the parking garage next to the Student Union. You can verify my story by observing the middle barricade is now not secure to the ground.

At some point, this will happen again, and not between a car and an inanimate object. I am writing this as a plea to the university to do something about the parking situation, not necessarily to alleviate the problem but to prevent someone from seriously getting injured. It’s only a matter of time, and I feel the staff of the university may not be aware of the severity of the problem because they are not driving during the most hectic times of the day.

I would like to challenge all members of the University administration to leave their parking spots one day at 11:30 a.m. and drive around the garages and Lots 14 and 18 until around noon to see what’s really happening on campus. I am hoping someone will listen to our students’ plea and look into this issue. Students will get hurt eventually; I simply hope the people who are able to prevent the situation will take action.

-Brittany Medley
Physical Therapy graduate student