Students fight for parking spaces at AU Exam Hall

Why is it that there is room for 1,100 students at the exam hall in Lisbjerg, but only 65 parking spaces?

That's the lingering question that has been frustrating students in exam class after exam class ever since last summer, when the university started sending students 10 kilometres out of town to take exams in a large new building in Lisbjerg Business Park.

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“I really wonder about that,” says Marcus Brinch about the parking situation. 

He is sitting with a couple of fellow students outside one of the exam rooms in the exam hall, waiting to sit his thermodynamics exam on Thursday morning.

He has plenty of time to talk to Omnibus, because there's still well over an hour until 10 o'clock. Marcus Brinch acknowledges that it is a privilege for students to be able to drive to exams by car, but according to the students Omnibus met in the exam hall, more and more are able to do so. Either because they drive their own car or borrow one, as the exams take them far outside the city.

And the many cars in the parking lot only reinforce that point. 

“You really have to plan and arrive well in advance if you want a spot. I drive from Viby two hours before the exam begins. I'll take a few others with me on the way, and then we'll drive out here to get a spot. We succeeded today, but I don't understand why getting a parking space has to be a problem at all," says Marcus Brinch.

Since the exam hall opened last summer, there have been a number of start-up frustrations. Especially among the students who have complained about too few buses, cancellations, and stress in connection with getting to the exam hall. Frustrations were particularly high during the winter months, and Nikolaj Høncke Keldorff, section manager of the Exam Office at AU, has had to explain several times that transportation is the student's own responsibility.

Midttrafik is running extra morning buses to the exam hall in Lisbjerg

He has referred to public bus routes, the light rail, which stops 800 meters from the exam hall, and the so-called super bike lane from Aarhus. But when asked about why there are so few parking spaces when the exam hall can accommodate almost 1,100 students at a time, he doesn’t have an answer. 

“I actually don't know,” Nikolaj Høncke Keldorff replies when Omnibus asks about the reasoning behind the number of parking spaces.

Many questions - few spaces

Thomas Iversen is studying for a Bachelor of Engineering, and like Marcus Brinch, he has a car, but he opted to jump on his bike instead when he went for his exams last week.

“I don't dare take the chance with the car because the risk of not getting a space is so great. I don't need that kind of stress right before I sit my exams. This is the fourth time I've gone for an exam in Lisbjerg, and every time, people have parked illegally because there's no room. There is a parking problem, and no one knows why," says Thomas Iversen.

Neighbors of the exam hall have complained several times that students are using their parking spaces without permission. Things have improved due to parking regulations having been tightened.

When Omnibus visited the exam hall, many questions were directed at the far too few parking spaces.

One student noted that there is enough space to create more parking spaces, another asked why there isn’t a parking garage, and a third looked with envy towards the neighbor's parking lot, where only one of the almost fifty parking spaces was occupied.

“Why didn't they build an exam hall in the University City? Then we wouldn't have had this problem at all, because we all go there all the time anyway," asked a fourth.

AU’s Exam Hall has gotten its own page on AU.dk. This tells you everything you need to know about getting there, but says nothing about the number of parking spaces beyond the fact that they are limited. 

Ida Marie Omøe Zinck, who is studying for a Master of Science in Economics and Business Administration, has had enough and has sent an official complaint to the university administration and management.

“AU has located the exam hall outside the city, but without ensuring sufficient parking facilities. If there are approximately 70 parking spaces and around 1,050 students, that equates to parking spaces for only 6.67%. And that's without even including exam supervisors, employees, service personnel, and others who must also be able to get to the location," she writes in her complaint, which has also been sent to Omnibus.

The complaint continues:

"AU also writes (on its website, ed.) that there is only a limited number of parking spaces at the exam hall, and that students are not allowed to park in the parking lots of surrounding companies. And this only highlights the problem: The students are told where they are not allowed to park, but a workable solution is still missing," writes Ida Marie Omøe Zinck, and calls for a solution to be found.

No additional spaces

But there is no prospect of more parking spaces, says Carsten Kronborg, director of FEAS.

“There are no plans to create more parking spaces. There isn’t room for any more parking spaces on the land we own, and if we were to build a parking garage on a neighboring plot, someone would have to rent those spaces to make ends meet. I can't imagine that the students or the university would pay that," says Carsten Kronborg.

To make the finances of a new, shared exam hall sustainable, FEAS has purchased a plot of land in Lisbjerg, where land prices are lower than in the centre of Aarhus. To obtain a building permit, there are some requirements for parking spaces that must be met.

The requirements for parking can either be found in the local development plan or in the City of Aarhus' guidelines for parking areas.

“In Lisbjerg, there has to be 1 parking space for every 100 square meters of building. The exam hall is 6,200 square meters, and that results in 62 places. In addition, there are three extra spaces because we’ve also built a warehouse next to the exam hall. So, there are 65 parking spaces,” says Carsten Kronborg.

According to Carsten Kronborg, creating the additional building, which is now a warehouse, was a requirement from the municipality. It could not have been replaced by parking spaces.

Regardless of whether it was permitted to build more parking spaces, there is physically no room for more, according to FEAS director Carsten Kronborg.

In addition to the parking spaces for cars, there are 825 spaces for bicycles, because of the City of Aarhus’ guidelines, which state that there must be 75 bicycle spaces for every 100 students. These are the requirements for obtaining a building permit, and that’s why it’s like this.

This text is machine translated and post-edited by Mie Skov Jeppesen.