Students outraged as N1 Car Park is Still Broken

The N1 lift at Monash Univeristy’s Clayton campus is still broken after 2 years. With parking on campus becoming more challenging, many disabled and injured students are reconsidering their drive to Monash.

According to some accounts, the N1 lift has been broken for over two and a half years. However, the last stalker space post dates back to July 2023. Regardless of when it started, the lift has been broken for a substantial amount of time. The elevator was supposedly fixed last year in September according to the MSA. However, that only lasted for a short period of time, as it broke down again later that month, and it continues to be broken.

For many students, getting a park on campus is difficult. With most of the blue parking permits being taken up quickly in the Monash Sport car park, students are then directed to the only multi story car park on campus, the N1. The first few floors are red permit zones, which are available to students after 10:00 am. This forces students to drive further up the tower to blue zone areas. Not only do students have to wait until 10:00 am, but if they do choose to park in the red zone, it can cost up to $5.50 per day.

Blue permits are also concerningly pricy. Starting at $3.00 per day - a recent price hike after making Friday’s free. Recently, there have been massive changes to the way students and staff pay for parking across all Monash campuses’. The app has changed from Cello to Opark with a brand new pricing structure to bout, after a long campaign from the 2024 Monash Student Council. Fee changes and parking availability in the car park are only going to make the N1 lift problem worse as the situation drags on.

Why is the lift being broken such a big deal?

For many disabled and injured students, the malfunctioning lift poses massive issues. It’s incredibly difficult to get a disability permit from the state government. So for students with disabilities and temporary injuries that can’t access a permit, parking on the first floor of the N1 is out of the question. That forces students to either arrive on campus incredibly early to park in the first blue permit spot available, take public transport or risk the stairs. By using the stairs, many students put their health in danger.

Charlotte Sutton from the Monash Student Association’s Disabilities and Careers department has been fighting to get the lift to work since January of 2024. According to her, “students are incredibly frustrated, particularly when they are paying for parking, and [they must] then work out a different plan [like] use public transport.”

The lift not working for so long has become a legend around campus, with Sutton implying that “It's so bad it's almost funny. It's kind of at the stage that the people I talk to [make] ongoing jokes that people will graduate before the N1 is fixed.” 

One such student who has been largely affected by the lift being broken, is young tennis player Lucy. After injuring her knee playing tennis, getting to Monash has become difficult. When using the stairs, she has to go slowly at the potential risk of exacerbating her injury.

“So in the N1 specifically, I try to get to uni really early so that I can get a parking spot on the lower floor because I can't even park on the ground floor anyway. Unless you want me to pay for staff parking or visitor parking, which is really expensive.”

In order to secure a parking spot on campus, many students like Lucy have to get to campus much earlier than their classes to even get a place on the lower floors of the N1. 

“That shouldn't be something that I have to think about every day to make sure I'm there at 8:00 in the morning. When I actually live an hour away, I'd be getting up at like 6:30 every day and some people do that all the time, but I feel like I should have a choice whether I want to do that or not.”

It’s not just disabled or injured students that are put at risk. There are elderly students and staff who are also affected.

Campaign ran by Charlotte Sutton in 2024 to raise awareness about the lift.

What has been done to fix the lift?

Sutton; (being on the forefront of campaigning for the lift to be fixed) representing disabled and injured students on campus, has been fighting to get the lift fixed. She remarks that this is a “country wide problem,” after talking to other student unions across the country. Most universities have a broken lift somewhere, and school administrators are slow to respond, affecting thousands of students.

The last update that Sutton received from Buildings and Properties, the Monash department that maintains all the lifts on campus, says that the lift should have been fixed by the end of 2024.

“To get that response was quite difficult. I think most of our updates have been through us talking to teaching staff and organisations that represent them and getting [the] information that way.”

A spokesperson from Monash University Media apologises for the delay in action, and remarked that the lift should be fixed by March 2025. They also said that any affected students should get in touch with Buildings and Properties, to register their vehicle to park in the red permit zones for the blue zone price.

Monash is also looking into the option of installing a second lift at the N1, to prevent future issues like this occurring. 

For many students, they just want the lift to be fixed. With all of the regular study stress, battling it out in the car park everyday to avoid walking down the stairs shouldn’t be something students have to worry about. Lucy finished off by saying that she’d “just like to get it fixed so we don't have to deal with all this extra nonsense on top of the stress that students already have from being at uni and doing whatever else they're doing in their lives. It's just unnecessary.”