After years of planning, improvements to campus parking are finally in effect; however, many unhappy students, faculty and staff are puzzled by the apparent lack of progress.
Students who paid a higher price for parking passes expected to find more campus parking when they returned this fall only to find there is less parking than the previous year. This time last year, there were 727 more commuter parking spots; however, to lessen the blow to commuters, the university sold 800 less permits this year. With more sophomores getting kicked off campus because of the increase of freshmen, there are more commuter students needing to park on campus and less spots.
“Everything is a process,” Mike Harris, director of parking and transportation, said.
Understanding of the students’ confusion, Harris said they had previously planned to have the parking garage completed by the fall.
“We are doing a lot to make parking better, but we have a lot of issues,” Harris said. “Unfortunately, everything is taking a lot longer.”
The new expected completion time for the parking garage is now spring when students return for the second semester. The garage will be five stories and contain 823 spaces.
“350of those spaces will be offered to faculty and staff for $500 a year,” Harris said. “If those don’t fill up, then they will be offered to the graduate assistants then seniors and so on.”
The rest of the spots will be “pay on time” spots offered to anyone wanting to park on campus at $2 for the first hour and $1 for every hour after with a maximum of $10 for a 24 hour period.
Harris is hoping that a lot of faculty and staff take advantage of the parking garage opportunity. Harris also hopes to make more commuter parking spots in the near future.
“My goal is to take the lot by the Tad Smith that was once commuter parking and convert it back as well as making the parking lot by the Manning Center a metered lot at $1 an hour,” said Harris.
Last year, the residential parking lots and commuter passes were oversold. This year parking services sold one residential permit per parking space.
“We’re going to guarantee them a space within their residential zone,” Harris said.
The other 200 students living on campus were left to buy park and ride passes.
Harris went on to explain that last year commuter permits were 2.79 permits to one space while this year he has lowered that to 2.5 permits to one space.
“I understand students are very limited on spaces,” Harris said. “It’s not fair for us to continually not limit those permits based on how many spaces are available because students should have reasonable expectations of finding somewhere to park.”
Harris is trying to continually decrease the number of permits to one space each year until it is 2 to 1.
On Thursday, a new lot was opened on Jeanette Phillips Drive, southwest of the track and field facility, adding 248 parking spaces. Harris is also hoping that in about two weeks, when the construction trailers for the parking garage are moved, there will be 88 more commuter spots.
Many students don’t like the long distance between parking lots and campus. Tatum Todd, a sophomore IMC major, thinks she is forced to park too far away from campus.
“It is a little irritating when I have to drive around for 30 minutes looking for a spot only to find one that is a mile away from my class,” Todd said.
Harris’s plan is actually to keep pushing parking farther away from campus.
“The direction we’re going toward is more mass transit for students because we are growing every year and are not going to have the space to build close parking,” Harris said.
Harris encourages students to be more adaptable to the park and ride option; however, some students do not see this as a viable option. Madeline Marchetto, a sophomore biology major who did not buy a parking pass on time, would prefer to have personal transportation.
“I don’t want to have to drive to some lot and then wait for 30 minutes for a bus to come take me to class,” Marchetto said.
There are two different park and ride lots and buses: the brown line that picks up at the Jackson Avenue Center and the gold line that picks up at the south lot.
“All the buses do is go from the lot to campus. Their only job is to take students to and from their cars to campus,” Harris said.
The expected wait time for both bus lines is five to seven minutes. They run from seven in the morning to seven at night, Monday through Friday.
Harris encourages more students to use park and ride. Permits are still available, and anyone with a different pass can park there as well. He also urges all commuter students to download the new parker app, which allows students to check lot availability.
Julie LaBerge
jklaberg@go.olemiss.edu
