by Megan Trotter & Naomi Girson | news editor & staff writer
On the second day of classes, junior Emily Coppeta ran into the Student Union in a flurry looking for her friends to show them a picture of where her car had been parked.
Her red Chevrolet Cruze was cozied up to A-Walk and parked up the hill on the left side of the road right across from Old Main.
It wasn’t in a parking lot.
It wasn’t even in a parking space.
Coppeta is one of many students who was directed away from the parking garage over the last three weeks.
Duquesne recently announced new surface-level parking areas, but permit holding students continue to express animosity over the makeshift “valet” created to help field the number of cars spilling out of the garage.
First-week confusion
When purchasing a parking pass, students are not specifically told they will be given a spot in the garage, but Coppeta expected to be able to park their and was disappointed that one of her first experiences driving on campus was filled with stress and confusion.
Coppeta, who commutes from the South Side, had waited two years to have her car, at Duquesne. Despite living off campus her first two years of college and suffering without a car this year was the first that Coppeta decided to finally splurge on a parking pass for school.
“My freshman year, my sophomore year I dealt with it, even living five hours away I dealt with it,” Coppeta said.
Now, instead of arriving at school with ease, using the luxurious freedom of a car, she had to aimlessly look for a spot and get redirected to a makeshift parking area.
Four seniors, also living in the South Side, said they had experienced the same situation and were forced to park their cars in random areas around campus.
Madison DeMatteo, Bailey Nocera, Maddie Simeone and Alyssa Stoneroad had to walk from Old Main — where they were directed to park by Duquesne parking attendants on Tuesday.
DeMatteo arrived at 11:20 a.m. for her 12:15 p.m. class to combat the confusion of parking.
However, not every student arrived almost an hour prior to classes, and DeMatteo said she saw a student show up 30 minutes late to their class, frantic because he could not find a parking spot.
While many students expressed annoyance with finding a spot, South Side resident and junior Ryan Bragg, who lived previously on campus with his car, said his advice is to ignore what the parking department and the attendants were saying.
“You just have to know what you’re doing,” Bragg said. “Don’t follow the crowd; go against the big line [of cars].”
Ryan Young, a commuter assistant and resident of South Side, said he is experiencing these parking problems for the first time.
During his commuter assistant training this summer, Young said that the parking department informed him the parking garage is typically only over populated during the first week. This is because students studying nursing and similar programs stop going to campus because of clinical.
However, as Duquesne reaches the end of the third week of classes the parking issues have not subsided.
Freshman passes and increased admission
According to Duquesne’s 2021-2031 Institutional Master Plan stated that the university expected enrollment projections for undergraduate and graduate programs to have a “modest decline” from 2021-2024.
Despite this prediction, and since the addition of the College of Osteopathic Medicine this semester, the number of admitted students has been increasing.
Last year Duquesne reported record-breaking admissions, which totaled 8,700 graduate and undergraduate students.
Last September, The Duke reported similar complaints from students about difficulty finding open parking spots. In reporting that story Duquesne University Official Communication sent an email announcing their new parking policy, in May 2023, which allowed freshmen to begin purchasing parking passes in the fall.
However, University spokesperson Rosemary Ravasio and Scott Richards, Assistant VP for Auxiliary Services retracted this information stating the May 3, email was a “misstatement” and that the policy was over 10 years old.
This semester, Duquesne freshman continue to be allowed to purchase parking permits.
With an influx of students purchasing spots Duquesne parking staff have been struggling to accommodate everyone.
Valet parking problems
In an email to The Duke, sent from university spokesperson Rosemary Ravasio on behalf of Richards, stated that students could find parking at Forbes Garage, Locust Garage, Chatham Garage, the surface lot located next to Forbes Garage and the surface lot next to the College of Osteopathic Medicine on Forbes Avenue.
“If the garages become full, two parking attendants staff each valet booth on level 6 and level 9 until 2:30 p.m. Parking attendants move vehicles to spaces as they become available, which may sometimes result in brief wait times as the attendants return back to the booths,” the email said.
Despite university promises to move and maintain the valeted cars as students need, Stoneroad stated that the valet solution was actually causing her more problems.
“They valeted a car in front of me and wouldn’t let me leave, and I have a two-and-a-half-hour break between classes,” Stoneroad said.
Ravasio’s email said that vehicles may temporarily become blocked while parking attendants wait for spaces to become available.
Valet results in vehicle damages
On Monday, Aug. 26, a Duquesne parking employee accidentally hit another vehicle while moving a vehicle for valet, according to a Department of Public Safety Student Right To Know Case Log Daily Report.
At the time, the garage was full, and parking employees were moving valet parked cars around to make room.
There were no injuries that resulted from the accident and there was very minor damage to both vehicles.
New surface parking
In a university-wide email, Richards announced additional surface level parking will become available on Friday.
The new areas include the lower Forbes lot (located on the ground floor of the Forbes Garage), the upper Fisher Hall parking lot (enter on Forbes Avenue across from the Armstrong Tunnel) and the lower Fisher Hall parking lot (entrance from Boyd Street to Watson Avenue).
Richards told The Duke that these lots are owned by the university.
“After looking into it, university leadership determined that these lots weren’t being utilized to capacity, so they decided to transition these lots to maximize surface parking for permit holders,” he said in the email.