October 4, 2016
By Evelyn Popoca
For the past few years, Dominican’s parking permit has presented itself in the form of a sticker and had an annual fee of $100 for resident students and $50 for commuters, faculty, or staff.
This year, Dominican has replaced the parking sticker with a hanger-tag. According to Daniel Bulow, director of buildings and grounds, the parking committee had gone over ways to solve the parking space issue exploring different methods.
“We have approximately 1,200 parking spaces available,” Bulow said. This is a major factor to take into consideration. This is a lower number compared to the number of people within Dominican.
According to Bulow, the parking committee agreed on the hanger-tag because of two main reasons: increased visibility and the ability to place the permit in a different vehicle.
Security is able to easily see the hanger-tag and scan it electronically to prove the permits validity. These new policies and permits are in place to help the parking predicament.
One of the previously mentioned benefits of the hanger-tag is the ability to place it in different vehicles. People will no longer have to purchase multiple permits for their vehicles and will save money.
In addition to the hanger-tags, Dominican has also aggregated and altered new parking policies. For instance, Dominican now offers the option to purchase a semester parking permit. This is beneficial for students who won’t be attending Dominican for two semesters. This also gives insight into how many parking spaces will be available next semester.
On the other hand, Dominican has removed designated parking spaces for faculty and staff to allow for more parking. The East Lot is still designated for Main Campus residents.
When asked about the impact on her commute from work to school, sophomore resident Trevi Matthews said, “It’s still hard to find parking. It gets frustrating and takes up time.”
Dominican students seen appreciate mobility of the hanger-tags.
Commuter Daniela Martinez said, “I do believe the hanger-tags are more efficient than the stickers from last year. The stickers kind of take too much time and they stay on forever. Also, some people have multiple cars and with the hanger-tags, you can just take it and go.”
These new hanger-tags and updated policies show progress, but Dominican still has to make some improvements in regards to parking.
popoevel@my.dom.edu