The truth about parking at Fresno State
FRESNO, Calif. – Hundreds of students commute to Fresno State every day in their cars. The first thing they do when they get to campus is look for parking. The one complaint these hundreds of commuter students echo is there isn’t enough parking for everyone.
“It’s not great, it’s never been great,” Fresno State student Christian Miller said.
Miller said it usually takes him more than 10 minutes to walk to class from his parking spot. But before even parking he has to waste even more time just finding an open spot.
“It’s always cluttered unless you get here early in the mornings,” Miller said. “If you’re coming to a class in the afternoon, you know, I mean, good luck kind of thing. You have to kind of do a couple laps before you can find a spot.”
Miller thinks the best solution is a parking garage.
“I would say that we’ve needed a parking garage and we’ve needed that a long time ago,” Miller said.
It’s a solution Fresno City College implemented in 2022. The community college built a five-level parking garage to help with parking concerns.
But are Fresno State’s parking issues because of a lack of available parking spaces or is it something else?
Fresno State Parking and Transportation Manager Derek Brantley says it’s something else. He believes most complaints come from not being able to park closer to campus during peak hours.
“We have plenty of parking spaces,” Brantley said. “Matter of fact, there’s between 500 and 1,000 spaces that go unused every day, but those are located on the east side of campus.”
Fresno State’s parking website says that there are more than 20 parking lots on campus. The site also emphasizes late morning and early afternoons tend to be busiest times in those parking lots.
“The big thing is trying to make it easier to comply with the rules and easier and faster to pay to park,” Brantley said. “We have done a lot of that over the years.”
For more information on campus parking and what times and days require permits, contact Fresno State Traffic Operations.