Dori Mead, a junior in Middle East studies, feels she is being told not to come to work during the Olympics.
Mead drives 45 minutes every day from Taylorsville to the University of Utah. She has stayed in Taylorsville for five years?mainly because she needs to take care of her ill father.
She cannot park in the Eccles Broadcast Center’s parking lot since construction started in the hospital area. Now hospital employees, broadcast center employees and construction workers park in the KUED lot.
Mead parks in the A lots near the old dorms, but she wonders what will happen to that when the students in the new residence halls are moved to the old residence halls for the Olympics.
“Basically, they’re telling me, don’t come to work. You can’t get up here,” Mead said.
Mead would be willing to use public transportation if she lived closer to the U, but the bus doesn’t run where she lives in Taylorsville.
“I would have to drive to the TRAX station. I might as well drive all the way,” she explained.
According to Mead, the U had a good shuttle system, which she used to get from the broadcast center to lower campus.
But U Parking and Transportation Services discontinued the Van Cott stop and the broadcast center stop since students were transferred from the old residence halls to the new residence halls.
“Nobody saw the need to pick [broadcast center employees] up,” Mead said.
She submitted a letter to parking services asking if they would provide a shuttle service for the broadcast center, but she hasn’t heard a reply from them yet.
Mead said crossing Wasatch Boulevard is the main hassle of walking from the broadcast center to lower campus.
“We need a bucket with orange flags,” she said.
Despite the trouble Mead has with parking, she admits her situation is better than most students, since she has a staff parking pass.
Among other students who commute to work, Jeremy Lakey, a sophomore at the U, has experience commuting from Provo with the public transit system and with a car. It took him an hour and 45 minutes with a bus, and now it takes him 50 minutes to an hour with a car.
Lakey said he spends approximately an hour each day walking to his far-apart classes. In his opinion, commuting is not as bad as it sounds, even though he would like to live closer to the U when he is more financially stable.
“I’m earning more money than I spend, instead of vice versa,” Lakey explained.
While commuting does not affect his academic schedule, he spends most of his social time with the people living near him, rather than people he meets on campus.
“I like to hang out on campus, but it’s so inconvenient,” he said.
According to Lakey, finding mass transit is the biggest challenge of commuting. To help with the problem, the Utah Transit Authority encourages students to use buses by offering a free ride with a U card.
While students living semi close to the U can take advantage of the UTA, most commuters feel the UTA does not provide them with the flexibility they need.
“I liked [riding the bus] when I was a freshman. I didn’t have that many activities at school, so it was pretty convenient,” said Rick Henriksen, a senior in behavioral science and health.
However, he did resent the last part of his trip. If he missed the transfer, which he sometimes did when the arriving bus was late, he would have to wait an hour for the next bus.
“There are enough north south buses, but very few east-west buses,” Henriksen explained.
Henriksen dropped riding buses altogether when he got involved with student government and started taking lab classes offered in the evening.
“I leave campus at nine or 10 at night. By then, the bus system is very limited,” he said.
Kare Neve, a nontraditional student and an employee of the U, took the bus during her first year. She started driving when the UTA routes changed. If she takes the bus now, she will have to be at work half an hour early or 45 minutes late.
Neve now has two daughters taking night classes at the U, but they cannot utilize the bus either.
“I don’t think the UTA has met its challenge,” Neve said.
To help, the UTA has promised light rail service from Sandy to the U, 6 a.m. to 11 p.m. every 15 minutes, starting Dec. 15.
Even while commuters struggle to find ways to get to school and work, they must still fight to have a place to park once they get there. With the Olympics coming, their problems will only get worse.
U parking services is attempting to reduce the effects of the Olympics by providing students with parking alternatives other than campus lots.
Among the steps being taken, there a few that will benefit Mead?namely, the red and blue shuttles will be going to the old dorms, and a pedestrian bridge is being built to make crossing Wasatch Drive easier.
But most students think parking and transportation during the Olympics might still be chaotic.
“It’ll be interesting to see the changes,” freshman Jon Williams said.
“This is supposed to be a commuter campus, but where is the parking?” Mead added.
According to Alma Allred, director of Parking and Transportation Services, “Students ought to be looking for fliers, directions and guides from parking services to know what to do when we lose these parking spaces.”
Despite the complaints and hardships, students are willing to take an optimistic attitude to make things easier for themselves.
Henriksen believes a change in students’ principles and behavior would make it easier for mass transit to get things done.
Henriksen feels that parking and mass transit problems will not go away by themselves and that students will have to give up their habits and start carpooling or taking the TRAX.