Brandeis parking has been a common complaint among students for many years. There are articles in both the Justice and the Hoot going back to 2002 in which students complain about parking at Brandeis.
As of now, only juniors and seniors are able to apply for a permit that enables them to park on campus. If students park on campus without a parking permit, they are subject to fines/tickets by the University of about $15 to $25. However, these rules do not apply before 9 a.m. and after 5 p.m. Students are only permitted to park in Theatre Lot, X Lot, Gosman Lot and Charles River Lot. It sounds like there are a lot of great options for students, right? Well, maybe on paper… In reality, these lots are extremely inconvenient, and many of them fill up quickly.
By 9:40 a.m., a commuter student will almost certainly find that the entire Gosman Lot is full, as well as the entire Theatre Lot. Commuter students are typically forced to park in X Lot, which is farther away than the Gosman and Theatre Lots. However, even the “lucky” students who arrive early enough to park in the lots that fill up more quickly still face the problem of being parked far away from classes. Many undergraduate students have most of their classes at Rabb or the Science Complex, and the parking lots by these areas are reserved for faculty only.
Faculty are allowed to park essentially anywhere on campus, but students are limited to the worst parking lots. It is ridiculous. Students cannot get permits behind North, in the Library Lot, in the Science Lot, on Loop Road, in the East Lot, in H Lot, in the Mandel Lot, or the Admissions Lot. The list goes on and on.
In addition, commuter students have to pay $120 for a parking permit, and students living on campus have to pay $250 for a parking permit. The parking permit expires after one school year.
As of now, student parking at Brandeis could be drastically improved…