UR made $10,000 from seven Section V high school football games played at Fauver Stadium Oct. 26?Nov. 17, according to an estimate made by Associate Director for Recreation Jane Possee.
The games were well attended, and many fans parked cars on campus. River Campus Parking Coordinator Nancy Dailey said that Parking Services had originally planned to use only Library Lot and Intercampus Drive Lot to accomodate the football fans, but those lots overflowed.
“We ended up having to put people in Park Lot after other lots filled,” she said. “There’s always room in Park Lot.”
Students complained that the football fans filled up student lots as well, and forced them to park far away from their dorms.
Junior Sam Youn said that he had a permit for Hill Court Lot, but couldn’t park there during the games. “There were no spaces,” he said. “I had to park near the bridge to [the Graduate Living Center] just to get to Towers.”
Dailey said that parking issued no tickets during the football games, because parking never issues tickets in lots during weekends, unless one parks in a fire zone. No permit is required in any lot on campus between 4:30 p.m. Friday and 7:30 a.m. Monday.
Still, Dailey said, an effort was made to keep the football spectators out of student lots. “We didn’t need to issue tickets there,” she said. “We had students at barricades at the entrances to all the student lots.”
In addition to the parking problems, drivers on campus encountered a greater amount of traffic than average.
Dailey said that steps were taken to route the traffic efficiently, but it would have been impossible to have cars moving perfectly after the games ended. “This campus is not set up to allow 5000 people out at once,” she said.
The games are an important link between UR and the Rochester area community, Possee said. “We have had a very long-time relationship with Section V, probably 20 years now,” she said.
Possee said that the community service value of the games outweighed the traffic and parking difficulties that students had. “If we can do things better, I’m more than willing to listen, but I feel very strongly that this is a positive thing we do,” she said.
Bock can be reached at dbock@campustimes.org.
