University of Kentucky’s Kroger parking lot, K-Lot, has become crowded as the largest incoming class in university history fills the campus. Students who hold the periphery permit struggle to find parking with the given parking locations.

Parking lot attendants wore neon hazard vests and patrolled the area during the first few days of school on Aug. 22-25, advising pass holders that there were no spots at the university’s largest parking lot and explaining where to find additional parking.

“They had signs saying the lot was full, telling me to go to that spot over there,” senior marketing major Daniel Velazquez said, referring to an overflow lot near the UK Arboretum.

This year the student periphery permit allows parking in the Kroger Field Red and Blue lots, the Commonwealth Drive Lot, College Way East and West Lots and Wildcat Court Lot acting as overflow parking locations, according to the UK Transportation map and website.

These overflow lots are nearly a mile farther than K-Lot is to campus, forcing students to walk greater distances to get to their classes on time. They ensure students have a way to class but also make it strenuous to get there.

“Is it fair to bring in so many freshmen that you can’t really accommodate like that?” sophomore business major Anna Sergio asked.

Despite the trouble to find parking in the lot, students are still able to purchase new K-lot passes. The periphery permits can be purchased at the on-site customer service center all year and do not sell out, according to the website.

K-Lot periphery parking passes cost students $272 a year or $136 a semester. To ensure they have a parking spot to get to class, most students buy their passes before the school year begins.

“It is way too overrun for the amount of students UK has brought in, and for the amount of people that actually need to park, or commute to college,” Sergio said.

Some students are receiving tickets for violating parking regulations they didn’t know existed, becoming confused in the way the system is working.

“I had to park all the way by the community college, and I have to park there, and I got a parking ticket even though we got a permit,” freshman human health science major Madilynn Olenick said.

Attendees are trying their best to explain where new and confused students should park, while ticketers are unaware of students advised to park in these locations.

“I shouldn’t have even gotten a pass, I should have just racked up on tickets,” junior journalism major Alayna Tobo said.

As parking is limited and construction continues across campus, students and commuters wonder why the university hasn’t built another parking lot.

“I think they should have found a way to accommodate all of those students to be parked, or at least upperclassmen,” Tobo said.

Students also are required to move their cars out of K-Lot for every home football game as well as other varying days and weekends.

For example, on Thursday, Oct. 17, 100 K-Lot parking spaces will be reserved, and 50 will be reserved Friday, Oct. 18, as UK welcomes its board of trustees to the Woodford Reserve Club at Kroger Field, according to the K-Lot schedule.

UK Transportation Services has not responded to requests for an interview in regard to student parking troubles and sales of tickets.