The new parking garage is open for both students and faculty. (DM Photo | Logan Kirkland)
Parking registration for The University of Mississippi faculty, staff and students begins Friday for the 2015-2016 academic year.
To avoid the Internet troubles from last year, parking services have set aside certain dates for individuals purchasing decals, rather than allowing everyone to purchase decals at one time. Mike Harris, director of parking & transportation, said doing so should eliminate the troubles from last year.
“We had to do something to break it up, so that we only had little fixes along the way instead of everyone all at once,” Harris said.
Each time slot is determined by academic standing and will open at 8 a.m. each day. Commuting seniors’ or graduate students’ decals can be purchased beginning July 10. Juniors can purchase decals on July 13, sophomores on July 14 and freshman on July 15.
For students living on campus, Residential West residents can purchase decals on July 16, Residential Central decals will become available on July 17, Residential East on July 20th and Campus Walk and Residential South (formally known as fraternity parking) on July 21. Faculty and staff passes will open on July 22.
The first step for online registration will begin on olemiss.edu/parking. Individuals will click on the MyParkingAccount link and login with their Ole Miss web ID and password. Then, click to purchase permits and the eligible permits will appear. Lastly, individuals will register a new vehicle or continue with the one already in the system, pay for the decal and print off a temporary pass to use until the original is received in the mail.
Anna Lauren Inman, University of Mississippi senior, said that she likes the new time slot schedule and she would like to see more on-campus buses to transport students parked on the edge of campus.
“I agree with the seniority idea, but of course I am a senior,” Inman said. “I think adding more on campus buses will solve a lot of congestion and disagreement on how ‘fair’ the scheduling system is.”
Harris said a new bus route will open on August 23 called the Silver Route. The route will run between campus and the new Residential Park-N-Ride lot, located at the old Whirlpool plant. The Silver Route will run on Monday-Friday from 7 a.m.-7 p.m. and have on-call hours on Sunday-Thursday from 7 p.m.- 7a.m.
“This shuttle will run about every 20 minutes,” Harris said. “We have transportation in the day, on-call service at night, a secure place to park your vehicle so it’s a nice place to park your car.”
The parking garage will also be available for student use. Students will put their phone numbers into the machine at the entrance while a camera reads the car’s license plate, and then proceed into the garage. Once students are ready to leave, they will re-enter the same phone number and pay for the time parked in the garage. Payments are only accepted from Visa or MasterCard.
Parking services are introducing new resources to faculty, staff and students to help make their parking experience better.
Last year, parking services launched the Parker app that allowed students to view if the campus parking lots were at full capacity and locate their car once they were ready to leave campus. Harris said that the Parker app is going be even better this year.
“We have added more cameras, and seeing better, visually where those open spaces are,” Harris said. “We hope that people will take advantage of that and go to those open spaces.”
At the end of this month, parking services will launch a new app called Passport that will allow people to pay for meters by using their phone.
“You should never get a ticket for being over time parking anymore,” Harris said. “ It will send you a text 15 minutes before your time expires and you can automatically add more money.”
Hannah Trent, an incoming student, said that the apps are going to be beneficial to current students and herself.
“I am definitely going to use the apps,” Trent said. “ If I am ever in a hurry and need to know where to park, I can simply check my phone.”
Decals are $150 for commuters, $200 for residential students, $75 for park and ride students, $100 for residential park and ride and $160 for faculty and staff.
Harris’s advice for students and those parking on campus is to be patient and to allow yourself time.
“We don’t live in a world where you can drive up and within 10 minutes, park and get to class,” Harris said. “You have to think of traffic and know your route that you are going to go every day, and have backup plans.”
For more information about the upcoming parking changes you can visit the Ole Miss parking services website or call the office at 662-915-7235.
