Illustration by DJ Ross

It is no secret to any student at Texas State that parking is a nightmare. While all students have valid reasons to complain, those with the purple commuter permit might take the cake.

There are very few accommodations for commuters on campus and Texas State needs to take action and work with the students to address the issues that students have tried to bring attention to.

Texas State has many different parking permits; however, the most common ones are the green residence hall permit, the red permit for faculty and the purple commuter permit. 

Currently, the largest commuter parking lots are near Bobcat Stadium, which is 1.5 miles, or a 28-minute walk, away from LBJ Student Center. While the university offers a shuttle system with a route from the stadium, this option is only feasible for some students.

Raven Lycette Griffin, business marketing sophomore, purchased a commuter pass this year because the Bobcat Shuttle System does not have a stop near her apartment, and the apartment bus system stops running before her classes end. Without the commuter pass, she would be left stranded on certain days. 

“There’s really no win-win on anyway to get to school and class on time,” Griffin said. “The likelihood of you getting a spot [at the stadium], I just don’t think is worth the amount of money that you pay for it.”

San Marcos has a plethora of housing options available for students, many of which are on or close to The Square. Though these apartments are close to campus, it can still be impractical for students to walk to class every day due to the hills or the heat that has been dominating Texas this summer. 

Students who considered these factors and opted for a commuter pass were met with a newfound struggle to park as Texas State only has two on-campus commuter lots: the James Street Lot and Speck Street Garage, which is split to accommodate resident permits. 

“I think even the residents here don’t have enough parking, but when you think about it, these residents are about to move into the clump of commuters,” Griffin said. “There will always be more of a need for commuter spots than there will be for residential spots.”

Currently, Texas State is in the process of building the Hilltop Housing Complex. The complex will be finished in May 2024, and will accommodate 1,006 beds. Texas State is already having trouble housing the increasing number of freshmen accepted each year. If the trend continues, the students’ issues with parking will only continue to grow. The university must find a way to solve a problem they knowingly caused. 

“Their excuse is ‘We don’t want to make the campus a concrete jungle,’ because we do have a very beautiful campus,” Griffin said. “But, at the same time, if we’re building things like super dorms, we kind of have to take it into consideration. There has to be more parking.”

Another issue held within the student body is the abundance of restricted parking scattered around campus. While faculty also struggle with parking, they are not the majority. There are about 5,000 faculty members, but that’s nothing compared to the 38,000 students. 

According to the parking map, there are over 20 restricted lots on campus. These lots are off limits to all other permits from 7:00 a.m. to 5:00 p.m. on Monday through Friday. 

“There’s restricted parking absolutely everywhere for only employees, but there’s also college kids everywhere, and they continuously take more kids every single year, but they’re not making any more parking, so how is that really sufficient for anyone,” Griffin said.

Accommodating parking is a big issue but if Texas State hopes to keep the student body happy, it must be addressed and it must happen soon.

-Rhian Davis is a journalism sophomore

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