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The Student Government Association (SGA), along with Quinnipiac staff members, have been hard at work for weeks to organize parking on Quinnipiac’s campuses for the 2017-2018 academic school year.

Public Safety received feedback from students and staff who have parked on campus this past year. As a result, several parking changes will be implemented for the next academic year. These changes include an update to the parking pass system, reassigning lots designated to certain classes and improvements to the shuttle service to accommodate students. While these changes have not been officially announced by the university, they are the possible plans for the next academic year.

The Hilltop parking lot, which was previously designated as a sophomore parking lot on main campus, will now be restricted to seniors and juniors who live on York Hill only, from 8 a.m. to 10 p.m.

Parking and Transportation Coordinator Shanon Grasso has been part of the effort toward preparing parking plans for next year. Grasso believes the change on the Hilltop lot will help alleviate the stress of parking on main campus.

“This small shift will have a very positive impact on commuter and faculty parking in all other parking lots on the Mount Carmel campus,” Grasso said. “Sophomores will be able to park in the York Hill garage, Westwoods and Whitney lots only.”

SGA has tried to address the issue of parking, according to VP for Finance Ryan Hicks.

“I think that this change just needs to be made so that every student has a place to park, which sounds super cliche, but at the end of the day parking is something that needs to be addressed,” Hicks said.

Grasso expects incoming sophomores to disagree with this policy change. She assures the student body that improvements to the shuttle system will lessen the inconvenience of parking off main campus.

The carpool lot will now be open to commuters and will provide 138 more spaces, which will hopefully diminish the difficulty that commuter students have finding parking on main campus.

Hogan lot will be designated to overflow commuter students, and members of Residential Life, such as Resident Assistants (RAs) and Resident Hall Directors (RHDs).

The remainder of the parking lots such as College of Arts and Sciences lot, School of Business lot and Center for Communications and Engineering lot will all continue to be restricted to faculty and staff only. North Lot will remain a faculty and commuter lot.

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The inception for the changes for parking on the university began when SGA members realized there was an issue with parking on campus.

“Joey Mullaney and Sarah Schreiner, who are two outgoing seniors right now, were the ones who came up with the idea that this needs to be brought to the administration,” Hicks said.

After coming to this conclusion, meetings were conducted with the administration, which ultimately lead to the survey being sent out to the student body, according to Hicks.

Grasso also explained that vehicle registration will open earlier than usual and plans to have the parking pass system up and running as soon as the semester begins.

The same parking pass and ticketing system will be in place next year, mandating that a vehicle with three parking citations will be placed on the tow list and after five citations, the parking privileges will be revoked, according to Grasso.

Grasso revealed that some features of the new shuttle changes will be on-demand services to students when they are needed and free Wi-Fi on board.

While students, faculty and staff would like to see a parking garage on campus, Hicks believes that smaller changes need to be tackled first before tackling big changes.

“The goal is to create a better environment for the students,” Hicks said, “I think anytime that the university makes a change, it’s with the students in mind.”