This tag was created by Edward Harthorn.  The last update was by Andrea Davis.

Changing Landscapes: From "The ASU Story" to Modern A-State

Parking & Commuting

The modern-day hunt for a parking spot on campus could not be more different than the experiences of commuters to campus before the 1960s. One graduate, Lloyd Langford, described his experience as a student riding the local 'Bull Moose' train, a diesel that pulled one or two cars: "You could ride from the J, LC, and E depot, which was on Johnson and Main Street in Jonesboro-- you could ride from there out to Arkansas State. They had a little lean-to built out there, in case it was raining or snowing." Another student, Homer McEwen, relates that he often hitchhiked, "and the townspeople were very good about picking us up. Later on it was regarded as a little bit of a dangerous thing to do, I suppose, to pick up hitchhikers, but the people of Jonesboro were very good about picking up students and taking them to and fro if they were going that way anyway" [1].
Despite the growing pains of the 1960s, adequate parking gradually emerged by the 1990s as several older buildings were replaced by surface parking and other lots were expanded; the dramatic growth of the campus over the next twenty years soon increased the demand for parking once again. The parking services office led the growth of both hard and soft infrastructure improvements, including the development of a three-level parking garage next to the Student Union and a multi-tiered parking system on campus complete with resident-only card-access lots.

The 1997 design study noted that while the A-State student body was comprised of about 80% commuters, there was no public transit available. In addition to causing congestion, the sea of cars had other consequences as well: "Parked cars create a negative visual image because they exist on or adjacent to most campus streets. The parking system appears to have been developed with the objective of maximum convenience to the campus user, and minimal consideration for the visual quality of the campus" [2]. The advent of the Jonesboro Economical Transit system (JET) has been helpful for not only commuters, but also resident international students without vehicles of their own. In 2017, a bike-sharing system provided by LimeBike debuted on campus as well.

[1] Larry Ball and William Clements, Voices from State: An Oral History of Arkansas State University (Arkansas State University, 1984), 46.
[2] Stuck Associates, "Campus Design Study: Site Analysis and Goal-Setting Workshop Report, ASU," May 1997, Archives & Special Collections, Dean B. Ellis Library, Arkansas State University, 9.

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