For students with cars on West Campus, the task of finding a parking space is about to go from bad to worse.
Construction of the new Wilson Recreation Center and the indoor tennis facility will likely result in the permanent elimination of nearly 100 parking spaces by the end of the semester, said Chuck Landis, manager of parking services. He said 33 spaces in the Cameron parking lot will be closed March 1 and, pending Board of Trustees approval of the tennis facility, 66 additional spaces in the IM lot will be removed sometime in April.
"The [loss of the Cameron] spaces will be an inconvenience. The tennis courts will bring those lots pretty close to capacity," Landis said. "What's interesting to me is that through all this construction there hasn't been any sort of plan about building new parking."
The IM lot currently has fewer than five spaces open during any given day, said Landis, so the loss of the 100 additional spaces would push students into an all-zone lot at the end of Wannamaker Drive.
Landis said that lot currently has slightly more than 100 open spaces, but students are not exactly thrilled with the prospect of parking there.
"Are you kidding me?" asked Trinity senior Chrissie Lukasiewicz.
"That's asking for trouble," added Trinity junior Melissa Irvin. "Who's going to park down there? That's scary."
The security camera and emergency phone in the lot did not alleviate Irvin's safety concerns.
"Either you're going to be carrying stuff like a bookbag or you're going to be dressed up and looking nice," she said. "That's automatically going to make you a target."
Major Robert Dean of the Duke University Police Department said the lot would still to be patrolled continually. "We're already patrolling 24-7," he said. "We're always concerned about crime."
Landis anticipated student concerns, but saw few other options for the University this semester. "I'm not saying you want to park there," he said. "But as long as there are available spots there, there's not a shortage."
Trinity junior Amir Rashid-Farokhi, Duke Student Government vice president for facilities and athletics, also urged students to bear with the parking squeeze. "It's going to be inconvenient to park, but that's how the ball bounces," he said. "There's no immediate solution."
In the event that the all-zone lot does run out of spaces, Landis said there was a possibility of changing a West/RT lot on Wannamaker to West-only or paving over a grassy area of land next to the lot owned by the athletic department.
"There are two things you can do: build more parking or have less cars," Landis said. "All I want for Christmas is a 1,000-space parking lot that's already paid for."
He added that multi-deck parking garages are very expensive and building one could lead to a large increase in the $150 parking permit fee.
Get The Chronicle straight to your inbox
Signup for our weekly newsletter. Cancel at any time.