Student Senate members are distributing surveys on campus this week to gather student input on parking situations on campus, specifically parking lots surrounding Lantz Building.

Donna Fernandez, chair of the Student Relations Committee, said Friday the committee wants to survey at least 1,000 faculty, staff and students in the hopes of getting a good feel for the parking needas at Eastern.

“The more we get, the better,” she said.

Results of the survey will be used in a parking forum that is set to take place April 9 and at future parking committee meetings, Fernandez said.

The parking areas in question are in the Lantz parking lot along the softball field and the row along Fourth Street across from the Gregg Triad, Fernandez said. These spots previously were student spots, but at the end of last semester, they were changed to staff, and a parking area in front of Lantz was changed to student parking, she said.

Along with the survey, committee members will be taking pictures of the parking areas and recording the number of open spots during the week. Pictures will also be taken of empty spots in the Coleman Hall parking lot, to prove there are empty spaces in other lots for faculty to park, Fernandez said.

Student members of the Parking Committee, which consists of three students, three staff members and three faculty members, have tried to get action taken on these issues before but have had difficulty.

Pending results of the survey, Fernandez said she would write a resolution regarding the issue for Student Senate.

Questions on the survey focus on how often students have to park in areas other than where they intended to park, how often they drive to class and how often they have been ticketed for parking in the wrong lot, Fernandez said.

Some questions also ask if students would be willing to pay a higher fee to fund construction of a parking garage on campus and also the idea of an assigned parking lot system, Fernandez said.

However, the increased fee for a parking garage would be substantially higher, and the issue is questioned every year, Fernandez said.

Senate members will return completed surveys at the next senate meeting Wednesday. Then the results will be tabulated and used for the next meeting of the Parking Committee.