Parking Services, in collaboration with the Office of Quality Initiatives hosted a student focus group Jan. 19 aimed at allowing student parking permit holders to express their concerns regarding parking services on campus.
The focus group was meant to facilitate a discussion between Parking Services and students to improve parking on campus, according to Brian Billings, assistant director of the Department of University Safety.
“We continually try to improve our service offerings,” he said. “We like to hear from all of our constituents.”
Devin O’Neill, a masters of chemistry student, noted traffic flow was a major concern when it comes to parking on campus.
“Trying to get out of P6 at rush hour is just not feasible, he said. “I just turn my car off if I’m leaving from 5-6 p.m. because there’s no way I’m leaving until the other lots clear out.”
Allan Burns, Carleton’s director of Campus Safety, also attended the focus group.
Burns said in response to the issues surrounding traffic flow, “there’s going to be a study done on the entire campus.”
He added a company has been hired to talk to Campus Safety and Parking Services about “how traffic flows on our campus, how pedestrian crosswalks and stop signs are, and how the intersections work.”
That report will be coming out in about a month, Burns said. He added one of the things Campus Safety is looking into is the creation of a third entrance to the university.
Not all the conversation was negative during the focus group. When participants were asked to evaluate the parking violations process, one student said they think Parking Services do a good job of being lenient.
Students also agreed Carleton’s pricing structure was fair and lower than what students at the University of Ottawa pay.
Focus groups are only one of the measures the Office of Quality Initiatives uses to generate feedback concerning Parking Services, Billings said.
“If there are commonalities among the data, it speaks volumes to us as to ‘maybe we should be doing something here.’ I guess that’s the evaluation process,” he said.
Parking Services and the Office of Quality Initiatives have hosted student focus groups for six years, with this year being the lowest in student participation, according to Billings.
