With the end of the semester fast approaching, the students at Fresno State are looking forward to having a break from studying, quizzes, research papers and tests. One more thing they will be looking forward to not stressing over is looking for parking.

Parking is a significant cause of stress for many students on campus, especially with our ever-growing student population of more than 25,000 students.

Students have been known to spend up to 30 minutes, and sometimes longer, trying to find a parking space during peak traffic hours.

This has many students asking every semester for additional parking spots. However, that doesn’t seem to be the problem.

The real problem is that parking lots with available parking are always too far from the center of campus, where most of the classrooms are located.

Parking lot P20, which is right across from the Grosse Industrial Tech building, is the closest parking lot to the center of campus.

This causes P20 to always fill up with vehicles and have the majority of traffic, especially being located on Barstow Avenue, one of the main roads going through campus.

Other than P20, P6 and P5, which are located in front of the Peters Business Building and Conley Art Building, respectively, there are only two other parking lots closest to classrooms.

Even students who manage to find a parking space near these parking lots will still have a long walk to class.

Any student parking space that requires a semester or day permit pass is usually a 10-minute walk from the center of campus.

Take, for instance, the Save Mart Center parking lot, which is open for student parking on non-event days and until 3:30 p.m. on event days. There are always parking spaces available there, but that is the farthest parking lot on campus.

There are also options for those who don’t want to walk 20 minutes to get to class. Fresno State offers a shuttle, the Bulldog Express, operating Monday to Thursday from 7 a.m. to 10 p.m. and on Friday from 7 a.m. to 4 p.m.

However, the Bulldog Express has only four stops and seems to miss most of the parking lots near campus.

Last semester, the Bird scooters on campus seemed to help students get from point A to point B quickly, but many complained of the cost to rent them daily.

A better way to address this parking problem would be to have a rent-a-bicycle service that is included with the cost of a parking permit or tuition.

With more students coming in every semester, the parking problem will only get worse, and it is imperative that the school come up with real solutions soon to make the college experience better for future Bulldogs.