Parking frustration is a sore subject for several FAU commuter students, but FAU Police Deputy Chief Keith Totten believes FAU is on track to fixing this problem.

Lot 16, which is between Student Services and the Student Union, was formerly a completely blue-sticker lot for student parking. Now 60 of its 450 spots have been converted into red-sticker spots. In other words, only faculty and staff can park in those 60 spots.

Totten claims taking spots away and reserving them for faculty and staff will actually help students. According to him, by reserving 60 spots on the end of the lot, FAU opened up better parking to students.

FAU conducts its own studies about parking, and the information gathered on Lot 16 showed about half of the parking spots were being used by faculty anyway, since cars with red-sticker decals are allowed to park in blue-sticker lots. FAU predicts the faculty members who have been parking in this lot will continue to park there. If this is correct, Totten claims students will continue to have use of half the lot. In fact, students should have better parking. “Though it might appear that blue permit spaces have decreased in practice this is not the case and everyone should benefit who utilize Lot 16,” Totten said.

In addition to better parking, he predicts FAU students should see improved parking by getting spots closer to buildings. He mentioned the new spots should “alleviate some of the traffic congestion for Lot 16 users as they try to exit onto West University Drive.”

This transition was made to accommodate faculty who work in housing, Student Services and the Student Union. Totten explained turning the lot into parking for students who live in the lot’s surrounding dorms was never considered, because resident students already have residential lots. FAU wanted to reserve spots for faculty and staff, because “There’s no red parking anywhere close to [the southwest] side of campus, so that’s why we needed to try something over there,” Totten said.

Some students appeared to be understanding of the need to increase faculty parking. Senior biology major Giovanni Fillichio is a commuter student who has used Lot 16 didn’t seem to mind the change. “Students need more parking, but the faculty does too,” Fillichio said.

FAU Senator Jad Khazem, however, is not as sure about the change. Still, Khazem is willing to wait and see how the new lot turns out. “I don’t really see the justification for [adding red-sticker parking],” he said. “I hate to see that blue parking is turning red, but ultimately we’ll have to look at the maps.”

So far, Lot 16’s reserved spaces have been open for a week-and-a-half. “The area that we made red has been filled up, so so far it’s been working,” Totten said. Since FAU’s expenses for renovating the lot were only labor and paint, Totten said the FAU police department would be willing to make changes if the lot doesn’t pan out according to plan.

There are no plans to add additional faculty parking, but if the need arises the department would be willing to consider adding more spaces. “We’re always looking to see who gets the best lot usage,” Totten said. “We don’t want any empty spaces. If there are too many, we try to adjust.”