The parking nazis were ruthless and beyond rude.
...to get from one game to another sounds very familiar. We've been to more lax tourneys than I can count, and there's definitely a pattern: Tourneys held at college campuses tend to have their fields spread out more than do tourneys held at purpose-built athletic facilities.
B17 just had a tourney up in Chester County, PA. It was held at an old, small airport that had been closed decades ago. It was converted to an athletic facility, and it's the best layout for a tournament I can imagine. It has about a dozen fields arranged two-by-two down what was the main runway. They built long parking lots on both sides of the fields, so everybody can park right next to their field, and your car's in easy reach if your next game is more than you'd like to walk. Really well done.
Also, it sounds like despite all the changes at ND, the gate guards are still following the same orders never to let cars through regardless of circumstances. Perhaps the lax coaches aren't aware of the headaches the gate guards are causing their paying campers?
called and discussed it with me. The athletic department and alumni office both received my complaint. Kavanuagh seemed to think there's some vital reason to treat people poorly on the empty campus on a Sunday afternoon. I hope at the very least they will re-examine that aspect of it. It makes no sense to handle things the same way on Sunday as on Friday, when employees are there and parking lots are full. Even in those cases, if they really wanted to take care of guests who travel distances for camps, they should find a way to empty a parking lot or two by noon (maybe send employees home early on a summer Friday?) so guests can be treated well.
...to put a camp-specific hang tag in the enrollment package along with specific instructions telling people where they can and cannot go with that hang tag. Then the gate guards won't have to make binary decisions about who can drive on campus; and the on-campus security police can feel free to ticket any duly warned camp families who park where they aren't allowed.
I think one of Notre Dame's biggest institutional problems is the inability to solve easy problems. Instead, ND blindly reverts to policies like "Nobody is allowed to drive onto campus."
The biggest problem is the amount of crap the campers bring. You'd think they were coming in for a semseter.
Crossroads construction plus all of the other work being done has made it a mess. It's one of the top complaints with faculty and staff as well and it's only getting worse as more lots are getting replaced with buildings. I live on the north end of downtown and there were some days this summer that I walked in to my office and made it to my desk faster than if I would have drove and then parked in the nearest lot not closed for construction and then either walked or taken a shuttle around from there.
It's almost to the point that I wonder if they wouldn't be better off putting a massive parking garage where the old St. Joe High School used to be and then have a very regular shuttle service around campus and then just close the lots off for more buildings and open quads. My guess is they'll be there within the next 20 years at the rate that the lots are getting torn up for new construction. I mean in 25 years or so you've gone from lots of greenspace parking around the stadium to only having a shrinking paved lot area south of it and the JACC. How much longer will that really last?
You can read the next 3-4 verses as well.
Pretty interesting. Talked about Parking Garage near Legends - don't know if that's still a probability with new Architecture building going there. Also talked about a garage northeast side of campus.
I would prefer underground garages. Of course they cost more than above ground, but I find their costs in this report a little inflated - $80,000,000 for 1000 car underground lot, $30,000,000 for above ground?
As part of Crossroads, there is an underground lot entrance near Legends. I have no idea what is down there, how big or how small. But there's a ramp down.
This is where the NBC/tv trucks/trailers/equipment now park. I'm sure there is some parking also (bigwigs, security, NBC staff?), but this is not a "public" lot that relieves some of the parking issues resulting from new buildings taking up former parking areas. And of course the ramp itself displaced surface parking spots - so probably a net deficit.
Edit: Also food service "A driving ramp leading underground has been built southwest of the stadium complex. That drive leads to underground loading docks and a commercial kitchen/catering service for the three buildings and the stadium."
There is some construction currently in a wooded area on northeast edge of campus (near the rugby field) that could be a new lot.
It's only money.