Campus Parking

Alexis Schneider-Brock, Krysten Kelly

We reviewed literature on the ongoing problem of campus parking, there are many concerns
regarding this issue, from students, faculty and staff of colleges across the country. Many
colleges have this issue but do little or nothing to resolve it. There are many articles that discuss
this issue one being from the University of Oregon, along with the University of La Verne.
Students and faculty take it into their own hands to discuss the issue that mostly affects them.

Possible solutions
At the University of Oregon they have many of the same parking issues as other campuses and
had the same solutions but were turned down because of expenses; their idea was to build a
parking ramp. Parking ramps could hold hundreds of parking spaces and not take as much space
as adding two or three more parking lots. A parking garage comes with a rather hefty price tag.
Building a two-story garage would cost upwards of $12 million and may only provide 300-400
more parking spaces. You could up the garage to three or four stories, but that also dramatically
ups the cost. Then theres the matter of city building permits, which might not allow such a large
structure to begin with (Hunt). Though a parking ramp would cost a lot of money if they take
into consideration of how many student would be parking there and sell passes at a reasonable
price they could have it paid off in no time. I do agree that they are obnoxious looking but if
that's what needs to be done then so be it.

Clark Kerr, a former president of the University of California system, once defined the university
as "a series of individual faculty entrepreneurs held together by a common grievance over
parking (Kenney, 2004). The article by Daniel Kenney, How to Solve Campus Parking
Problems Without Adding More Parking, covers many possible options to solve parking issues
on campuses. The article begins by stating a few reasons why campuses are discouraging cars on
campus. They estimated that student injuries or deaths caused by automobiles on campuses have
occurred at as many as 20 percent of all colleges, and they also claim that traffic around the
university drives a wedge between the university and surrounding neighborhoods because of the
increased needs of parking lots that can destroy the character of neighborhoods. Kenney then
goes on to state some possible solutions for the parking problems. One solution is that pricing
strategies should include incentives to promote desirable behavior like offering special parking
for car pools. At the University of Washington, the free-parking program for carpoolers has
reduced purchases of single-occupancy-vehicle parking permits by 32% over the past decade,
and those who use car pools can park free while others pay $192 per quarter. Car-pooling, use of
bicycles, and mass transit are some of the most inexpensive ways to reduce parking problems.
Another simple way to reduce parking close to campus is making the walkways between
buildings and parking lots safe, shaded, well lit, and appealing will help encourage people to
walk longer distances to classes or out to their cars.

Issues brought up by students

According to an article from the University of La Verne they had many issues with parking
around campus. They wanted students and faculty to start parking in a remote free lot off campus
and a shuttle would pick them up. Most people had already purchased their parking passes during
the summer then to make them park in the free lot after already paying for a spot closer to

campus seems absurd. It is hard to tell if this hefty increase was an attempt to make room for
parking, assuming perhaps there may be some who cannot afford it, or an attempt to take
advantage of students, knowing they will buy the parking permit anyway, only to learn later they
were paying for lot space that didnt really exist(Campus Times, 2012). This is often a problem
at MSU you purchase a parking pass not knowing if you will get a spot and then have to park in
the free lot that is already full.

Many campuses have a problem with selling more passes then spots available, the Universities
do this because they think that not everyone will be parking at the same time.How do they know
this for sure, most students take classes during the day or they are on campus studying. What is
confusing, as far as the University permits go, is why the school did not think to take a count of
the number of spaces available in ULV lots and sell only appropriate number of passes for
students and faculty that need to be close to campus(Campus Times, 2012). According to a
Marist College Circle article Schools often issue many more parking permits than available
spaces. For example, at the University of Arkansas, 14,000 parking permits are issued, even
though the campus boasts only 8,300 spaces. Auburn University in Alabama has 10,300 spaces
for its 18,000 student, faculty and staff permits issued each year(Roff, 2003).
Although some schools work parking fees into tuition and other charges, many faculty, staff and
students are forced to pay for parking permits up front. Large schools with limited parking
charge especially high prices for both faculty and students. For example, parking at Duke
University in North Carolina can cost almost $400. And parking permits at St. John's University
in Jamaica, New York, range from $50 to $350(Roff, 2003).

Bill Schmidt and Christopher Westley, authors of The University-as-Monopolist: Why Parking
Problems Persist at University Campuses, claim that part of the problem lies in the value of an
individual parking space. Shoup (2005) calculates that a new parking space in the United States
cost 17 percent more than a new car, and that in most cases, parking spaces cost more than the
cars parked in them, in part because cars depreciate in value faster than parking spaces do. They
also say that universities have the incentive to encourage violations, since violations maximize
revenue. As an example, Schmidt writes, Auburn University in 1995 issued 13,678 C-zone
(general student) permits while providing only 6,939 C-zone spaces, a practice which can only
lead to further violations. During this period, Auburn averaged $641,441 per year in revenue
from the enforcement of parking violations while earning $364,526 per year (average) from the
issuing of permits (Schmidt, 2010). Schmidt also says that it would not be in the universitys
best interest to provide enough spaces to discourage all parking violations or to enforce all
parking regulations by ticketing all violators. The universities encourage parking violators to
gamble that they will not receive punishment instead of discouraging the vast majority of
violators, and it suggests why many universities have been slow to expand parking lots as well as
why many parking violations seem to go without conviction.

Work Cited
"Campus Times Parking Problems Were Preventable." Campus Times RSS. University of La
Verne, 3 Nov. 2012. Web. 05 Apr. 2016. <http://laverne.edu/campustimes/2012/11/parking-problems-were-preventable/>.
Hunt, Pete R. "The Solution to the Parking Problem Is..." The Solution to the Parking Problem

Is... Oregon Commentator. Web. 05 Apr. 2016.

<http://pages.uoregon.edu/ocomment/ocarchive/oc01_02/oc2_01_02.html>.
Kenney, Daniel R. 2004. "How to Solve Campus Parking Problems Without Adding More
Parking." Chronicle Of Higher Education 50, no. 29: B22-B23. Education Source,
EBSCOhost (accessed April 5, 2016).
Roff, Aubrey. "Campus Parking Problems Plague Colleges Nationwide." Maristcircle. 13 Nov.
2003. Web. 05 Apr. 2016. <http://www.maristcircle.com/news/view.php/63546/Campusparking-problems-plague-colleges->.
Schmidt, B. H., & Westley, C. (2010). The university-as-monopolist: Why parking problems
persist at university campuses. The Journal of Applied Business and Economics, 10(6),
39-43. Retrieved from http://ezproxy.mnsu.edu/login?
url=http://search.proquest.com.ezproxy.mnsu.edu/docview/506524014?accountid=12259