Miriam Arias/Staff Writer
Fall 2012 will welcome returning students with about 2,000 new graduate and undergraduates, along with new faculty and staff.
As students prepare for classes and spend additional time on campus due to meetings, schedule rearrangements and more, the beginning of the fall semester tends to be particularly hectic in regards to traffic and parking difficulties.
According to the memorandum sent to the University community by Chief Financial Officer Kenneth Jessell, several changes have been made to ease students through these challenges. 
The University has increased parking availability by adding over 2,100 temporary decal parking spaces to the Modesto Maidique Campus for the first three weeks of the semester. The spaces have been divided across campus: there are around 300 additional spaces by the northeast corner of the campus, about 1,000 spaces at Tamiami Park, over 140 spaces by the Greek houses and over 250 in the Miami-Dade County Fair and Exposition area.
“I think additional parking for the first three weeks is a good idea,” said Gregory Vichot, senior and double major student in Accounting and Management.
“Past semesters have shown that there is an increased student presence during the start of the semesters, resulting in overfilled garages and car lines, which easily ruins any unsuspecting freshman’s chance of getting to their classes on time. [It’s] frustrating even to seasoned students, as it can increase wait by a whole hour,” said junior biology major Rafael Alberti.
In order to receive a student decal, one must be currently enrolled at the University and must have paid the Parking Access Fee. A photo ID and a valid vehicle registration are also required. Decal fees are included in your tuition and can be requested online at parking. fiu.edu.
Parking at the Engineering Center will also be available with shuttle rides to MMC every 15 minutes from 7:00 a.m. to 10:00 a.m. and later on from 4:00 p.m. to 7:00 p.m.
“These additional shuttle times are being provided for the ‘park and ride’ spaces created at EC. It is expected to be used by university employees to help alleviate parking and traffic flow at MMC,” said Office Manager of University Technology Services Lisette Hernandez.
According to Hernandez, the CATS shuttle is scheduled to run from 6:15 a.m. to 10:20 pm. to help the staff get to their vehicle when the additional shuttle is not working. The University will also be expanding their shuttle service within MMC.
There will be several pick-up and drop-off locations to facilitate the long walks from class to class and parking garages for students.
Additional police officers and public safety technicians will be placed throughout the University’s intersections to ease traffic. The memorandum sent by the Office of Finance and Administration also alluded to the change in the traffic circle at SW 16th street.
“We have reconfigured the circle to have one “straightaway” lane and one right turn only lane. This change has significantly reduced bottlenecks over the past month it has been open,” Jessell stated.
The memorandum concluded, “We will carefully monitor these enhancements and changes during the fall semester so that we may evaluate how well they worked, especially as we look ahead. We may consider different options in the future if we believe we can improve parking and transportation services.”
-miriam.arias@fiusm.com
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