By David Lazzara
As the current semester has continued at Dominican, students have voiced concerns over the existing parking arrangements.
This is nothing new, with parking being a known problem for Dominican for a couple of years. Airing his past challenges finding a spot, junior Nicholas Tamas-Olandea said,
“I have had parking issues before…Sometimes I have to circle a few times in the lot before going to the garage, but even then, it can be full to the very top floor.”
Stories like these are commonplace. Senior Damian Marciniak has had a similar experience.
“Last semester, I almost missed my class because I did not get to campus until 11:50 am. I spent 10 to 20 minutes looking for parking and had to go to the top of the garage,” he said.
Addressing these concerns, Sasha Santiago, director of campus safety, said,
“In collaboration with the registrar and other university departments, we identified problem spots in past semesters and have been able to alleviate some of those tension spots with class and program scheduling.”
In recent semesters, Dominican has been searching for solutions. One is having more parking spaces available in Thatcher Woods.
“We continue a relationship with the forest preserve at Thatcher and Chicago. We have an active contract that we review and renew each semester in case we find ourselves in a position where we need overflow parking,” said Santiago.
However, when asking students about the parking at Thatcher Woods, many said they did not realize it existed.
“I have not heard about it,” said Tamas-Olandea.
Dominican has also had to deal with the Village of River Forest changing parking rules on nearby streets. Within the last couple of years, parking on Park Avenue and south of Thatcher Avenue has become only for River Forest residents. Speaking on their commitment to work with the village, Santiago said,
“We work to make sure we understand the competing priorities the village is facing between meeting the needs of their residents and wanting to be good neighbors and partners to us. We strive to be a willing partner in mutually beneficial decision-making and want to make sure we understand any new or emerging issues in the surrounding areas to campus.”
Students have also wondered whether Dominican’s freshman class size increases from 2022 to 2024 are related to recent parking problems. Speaking on this, Marciniak said,
“You have to make sure to account for all the parking based on your student population. That is really the only way; you cannot create space out of thin air.”
With freshman class sizes decreasing in recent years and Dominican trying solutions like parking at Thatcher Woods, it remains to be seen whether the parking problems will start to ease up over time.
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