WSU students, faculty and staff will face parking issues as fans and alumni travel to Pullman for today’s game.

Permit holders will be required to vacate affected lots, which include all parking garages and almost all other permit lots on campus, by 1 p.m. in anticipation of the game’s 7:30 p.m. kickoff. The only exception to this are those who have both a parking permit and a Cougar Athletic Fund permit, according to the WSU Transportation website.

WSU President Kirk Schulz sent an email Monday addressed to faculty, staff and students regarding the parking issues. He stated in the email that classes would be held as scheduled, but faculty and staff were given “as much flexibility as possible to keep the academic enterprise fully functioning.”

The email also mentioned free shuttles, which will begin running at 7 a.m. today, and will run until 11:30 p.m. WSU Transportation Services is encouraging people to park in their permit lots until 1 p.m., at which time they are asking for people to move to a Park & Ride Shuttle lot, which are shown on the website in the link above.

According to the site, most shuttle routes should pick up from stops every 8 – 10 minutes.

Chris Boyan, assistant director of operations for WSU Transportation, said the limit on parking presents an opportunity for people to try a new mode of transportation.

“If people want to try something different,” Boyan said, “like walking or biking or some active transportation, this would be a great opportunity for that.”
Boyan said weather reports are showing good conditions for today, which further gives people an opportunity to use alternative modes of transportation to get to their jobs or to class.

He said he understands if people are frustrated, but that Transportation Services is happy to help those affected by the change in parking.

“I think complaints are not the way to go about it,” Boyan said. “I get that it’s going to be a little bit frustrating, but it’s definitely not impossible.”

People who are worried about needing to change their schedules or modes of transportation are encouraged to contact Transportation Services. However, he said that due to history, he thinks there will be very few problems.

“I believe it was 2013,” Boyan said, “we had a Thursday game that was very similar. Operations at the university were different, but trying to get people to try something different [for transport] was the same.”

The people that were affected with the change in 2013 were happy to help and took the issue in stride, he said.

“It went really great,” he said. “We were pleasantly surprised with how many people participated by getting their cars off campus by 1 p.m.”

Gameday transportation changes in 2013 were similar to those of today’s game, according to a Daily Evergreen article.