By Ashly Lopez and Ashanti Velez, April 28, 2026
Cal Poly Pomona psychology student Dashiell Morales-Robledo arrived on campus an hour early for class, but instead of preparing for her classes, she circled the parking lots in search of an open accessible space. By the time Morales-Robledo, a wheelchair-bound student, finally made it to class in Building 5, only minutes remained.
Morales-Robledo is a student registered with the Disability Resource Center who requires mobility assistance navigating the campus’ hilly terrain, particularly when traveling from accessible parking areas to classroom buildings. She said this was another day her access to education was cut short not by choice, but by the university’s failed support system.
The mobility assistance program, operated by Parking and Transportation Services, provides an intra-campus cart service for eligible students with mobility difficulties. It provided approximately 1,480 rides to around 110 registered student users in fall 2025, according to Assistant Dean of Students in the Division of Student Affairs Staci D. Gunner, who is currently overseeing DRC operations.
The program outlines several requirements for students to use this service:
- Rides before 4:30 p.m. must be scheduled at least 30 minutes in advance, while evening rides require at least one business day’s notice.
- Rides are fulfilled in the order they are received.
- Riders must be present at their designated pickup location at the scheduled time, with drivers waiting no more than three minutes.
CPP Executive Director of Parking, Transportation and Administrative Services Mike Yu told The Poly Post the demand for the mobility assistance service has increased significantly over the past two years, with 15-minute booking slots filled from the beginning to the end of each day.
Lack of funding
With this demand, Yu acknowledged students have raised concerns about mobility assistance services and said the department has received and reviewed student feedback.
“The most common feedback is missed rides,” Yu said. “It’s usually because of miscommunication. Either the request was submitted for the wrong location, or the driver arrives, and the student isn’t visible.”
However, according to Yu, duplicate bookings and students’ confusion about pick up locations also contribute to students missing rides.
Yu added that based on his data, it is mostly first-year students who miss the cart because they are unfamiliar with designated pickup locations. The information about the locations is shared by the DRC during registration, according to Yu. He also noted students can also view pickup locations through an online map tool.
After receiving feedback from students, Yu said the department works to resolve these cases individually and improve communication with users. Despite those efforts, the main obstacle Yu cited is the lack of funding.
According to Yu, the program operates with one student employee serving as a dispatcher and a second employee solely responsible for driving the cart. Those two student employees manage all 42 individual ride slots offered daily, Yu said.
“There’s always plans for improvement,” Yu said. “What we’re noticing today is the need is growing. We need a second cart and a second driver, but that requires additional funding.”
Gunner said the DRC is also examining how students are introduced to the mobility assistance booking system. While an online tutorial and application guidance currently exists, she acknowledged students may benefit from more hands-on orientation, clearer mapping of pickup locations or additional check-ins to ensure they understand how to use the service effectively.
Disabled students left behind
Jasmine Venegas, a kinesiology student, and Morales-Robledo, who co-founded the campus organization Sunflower Collective in response to a growing need for connection, community and advocacy among disabled students at CPP, said the challenges they and others face point to a larger need for sustained support and structural change on campus.
Morales-Robledo said the lack of available parking often forced her to arrive late, miss class entirely or attend while physically exhausted due to chronic fatigue and pain of using her wheelchair to cross long distances on campus.
“Every time I needed to go to class, and I got there an hour earlier, I would go to every single lot, and there were no handicap spots open,” Morales-Robledo said. “I started to notice a lot of handicapped spots were actually taken by vehicles without the placard or people waiting in their car like a loading zone.”
Venegas said other members of the Sunflower Collective raised similar concerns , particularly regarding the university’s mobility assistance services.
“I’m getting feedback from (disabled students) that it’s not working out for them,” Venegas said. “They’re either left behind, misscheduled or (the Mobility Assistance Cart) comes on the wrong day. There’s only one driver, as far as I understand. That just seems like such a barrier, and at that point, that kind of makes your class inaccessible.”
Morales-Robledo said this can be especially challenging when students book a specific lot in advance but are unable to find parking there upon arrival, leaving them in a different area than expected and at risk of not being picked up by the mobility assistance cart if they cannot reach the designated pickup point within the allotted time.
Additionally, Morales-Robledo said despite following all required procedures for mobility assistance, the service often does not pick her up. With the increase of requests, time required per trip and clustered class schedules, Morales-Robledo said she wonders if this creates a level of demand that points to significant workload strain and potential staffing imbalance, limiting how many students can be served.
Both co-founders said when these issues arise, they have attempted to raise concerns with university departments, including the DRC and Parking and Transportation Services both in person and via email, but often receive little to no response. When they are able to reach someone, they say the issues are rarely resolved.
Their experiences echo those of other students navigating accessibility challenges on campus. For example, Nicollette Davis, a theater student, said because of her medical condition, getting around campus is physically demanding and often exhausting.
“I have an autoimmune disease, and with that comes arthritis and inflammation, so sometimes it could be harder for me to travel certain distances, which is why I have the handicap placard,” Davis said. “I find it to be a little frustrating, the lack of parking or the lack of accessible parking that they have, because even so, a lot of the accessible parking is still pretty far away from a lot of the main campus areas and activities.”
Despite 25 disability parking spaces near the theater building on campus, Davis said she struggles to find available parking. She added although she is registered with the DRC and connected with Parking and Transportation for mobility assistance services, the program has created more challenges than solutions when it comes to accessibility.
Davis said she eventually bought an e-scooter after the mobility assistance cart repeatedly failed to arrive for scheduled pickups, causing her to be marked late for class. She said this happened multiple times.
“I feel like they definitely could be doing a better job of making the school more accessible,” Davis said. “Instead of spending all that money on the logo, they could have hired one of the students to do it and then spend some of that money on bettering and remodeling (the university) for more accessible points.”
Gunner noted that the DRC is aware of concerns related to mobility assistance operation and ADA-accessible parking spaces. However, she said since her onboarding in August 2025, much of the complaints the DRC received center on timing constraints that impact students’ ability to arrive to class on time.
“Students have shared that even when they plan ahead, they can still arrive five to 10 minutes late depending on timing and coordination,” Gunner said. “In the time that I’ve been with the DRC, any formal concerns about MAC, complaints generally I have heard here and there, but no student has reported anything formal that I can see. Again, it doesn’t mean it doesn’t happen.”
ADA parking abuse
Faculty members who work closely with the disabled community said these concerns reflect broader systemic issues. For example, Chloe Simpson, an assistant professor of adapted physical education and co-dfirector of the Motor Development Clinic, said her experience working with disabled clients reflects these challenges.
“Through my work with disabled students, I see how our disabled students are often, perhaps unintentionally, failed by our campus,” Simpson said. “I truly believe the DRC works hard to support students within their scope, but beyond that, many aspects of disabled students’ lives remain unseen and unsupported due to a lack of resources and awareness.”
Through the Motor Development Clinic, an individualized movement program for children with disabilities experiencing delays in motor skills, the university partners with families to provide specialized support, with each child carefully assessed by CPP students under the supervision of clinic staff.
Even as the program works to address developmental challenges and support the broader disability community, Simpson said it also underscores gaps in how the university serves disabled individuals on its own campus. She said she is frustrated by the high cost the clinic incurs each semester to cover disabled client parking, an expense that strains the program’s ability to sustain itself, while accessible parking remains difficult to secure.
“The Motor Development Clinic utilizes Parking Structure 2 for our clients,” Simpson said. “I find that our parents struggle to find accessible parking. Sometimes it’s because CPP students park and sit in their cars in the accessible parking spaces for dropping off peers.”
Yu agreed Parking, Transportation and Administrative Services has seen an increase in ADA placard abuse on campus. While the university meets legal accessibility requirements, enforcement and resource limitations remain ongoing challenges, he said. Misuse of the disabled parking has been the fifth most common parking violation on campus in a period from July 1, 2021, toFeb. 26, 2026, according to the CPP dataset on parking violations.
While Parking and Transportation officers issued 428 citations for parking violations, totaling almost $180,000, the same data showed Parking and Transportation Services employees only issued four tickets to people who failed to present a valid disability parking document and one for unlawful use of a disabled placard.
The university’s Parking Policies and Procedures website states the university enforces both its own campus parking regulations and the California Vehicle Code. Furthermore, under California Vehicle Code Section 21113(a), CPP is granted the authority to establish and enforce independent parking rules on campus property.
All vehicles, including those displaying a disabled placard or license plate, are required to have a valid parking permit on campus, according to the CPP parking policy. The valid permit must properly be displayed along with a DMV-issued disabled placard or plate. However, disabled placards do not permit parking in red, orange or yellow zones.
Yu said officers regularly verify placards by matching them with registration cards and identification, similar to ID checks at retail stores. Through these checks, the department has found some students misuse placards belonging to family members.
“What we’re finding is that sometimes it doesn’t match, and students are using a parent’s or grandparent’s placard incorrectly,” Yu said.
Yu said addressing placard abuse is one way the department attempts to free up accessible spaces, though staffing limitations affect how much enforcement can be done. The department currently operates with a small team.
“I can count them with two hands,” Yu said. “We have myself, a budget analyst, equipment tech, systems analyst, parking coordinator and three parking officers, and that’s it.”
He added the department is currently looking to recruit two additional officers to help meet the demand, not only in enforcement but also in service capacity.
Calls for Inclusion and Resolutions
Yu emphasized accessibility is a broader campus issue that extends beyond parking services. While the university meets minimum legal standards, Yu acknowledged more needs to be done.
“We need more ADA spaces,” Yu said. “That’s been a long-term goal of ours, and we’ll continue to look at it and hopefully increase it in the near future.”
In the meantime, students like Davis, Venegas and Morales-Robledo still feel invisible and overlooked. Davis said she is frustrated as she has voiced her concerns and experiences, but the DRC and Parking and Transportation have not made any attempt to connect with her or resolve her concerns.
“It’s saddening and disappointing,” Venegas said. “We’re in 2026 and we should be more aware and accepting. I hold a college campus to a higher standard. This is an institution meant to educate. We pay just as much tuition as able-bodied students. I don’t think that’s supporting disabled students’ education well, so that’s very frustrating.”
According to Gunner, experiences like these can significantly shape disabled students’ sense of belonging on campus, sometimes making them feel as though they do not fit in or cannot thrive. Gunner said she does not want preventable issues to become barriers to student success, emphasizing students should be supported in pursuing the purpose that brought them to the university in the first place: graduating and walking across the stage.
Gunner encouraged students to report concerns directly to the DRC or the Dean of Students Office, either through formal reporting systems or direct communication, to ensure issues are addressed.
Formal reporting options include Report an Access Barrier, Non-Academic Misconduct Incident Reporting Form, Dean of Students Meeting Request Form and Report @ CPP.
Gunner also encourages students to email her directly if these avenues do not yield a response or if additional follow-up is needed.
“As a campus community, we need to continue to look at ourselves, our practices, our policies and our procedures in a really honest way and have some really tough conversations, including listening to students, to be able to do that,” Gunner said.
Feature image courtesy of Ashly Lopez
Michael Stewart contributed to this article.
