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Parking shortage continues despite planned garages
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MICHELLE DURHAM
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By Parking and Transportation employee Marie Torres checks people out of the Second Street Garage July 31. Due to parking shortages, on-campus garages are becoming more frequently used for parking by both UA students and staff.
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Monday August 20, 2001 |
Arizona Daily Wildcat
Zone 1 permits scarce, $25 more expensive
Planned parking garages will not be finished soon enough to ease this fall's parking crunch, according to Parking and Transportation Services officials.
"(Parking) is going to be tight," said Patrick Kass, director of Parking and Transportation Services. "We have over 50,000 people on campus and 10,000 spaces."
In October, construction will begin on a 1,500-space parking garage northwest of East Sixth Street and North Highland Avenue, said Joel Valdez, senior vice president of business affairs.
The five-level garage should be completed by August 2002, Kass said.
Approximately 348 Zone 1 spaces will be blocked off because of construction of the new garage, said Andie Graessle, senior parking and transportation program coordinator.
"Students will be walking around, seeing empty Zone 1 lots and asking (PTS) why they can't park there," Graessle said.
PTS officials said they are also planning to build a garage near University Medical Center that will house from 1,500 to 1,700 spaces.
Building vertically in the form of parking garages has become the only way to replace parking spaces lost to construction of campus buildings, Kass said.
Throughout campus, Zone 1 parking lots are being destroyed in the name of construction. A lot at the corner of First St. and Vine Avenue is now being demolished to construct a building.
A pay parking lot west of Park Student Union will be the target of student-union expansion in February, and a lot-specific lot north of Coronado Hall will likely be under construction this year or next, Kass said.
Parking and Transportation Services is looking to add 11,000 to 12,000 more parking-garage spaces in the future, Graessle said.
But the cost of building parking garages results in pricier permits.
Each space in a parking garage costs $7,000 to $10,000 to build, Graessle said. Parking garage permits cost $400 per space.
"We're trading $185 (Zone 1 permit) spaces for $400 (parking-garage permit) spaces," Graessle said. "We're not happy about that, but we have no other choice."
Students with this year's Zone 1 permits paid $185, $25 more than last year, partially to cover the debt incurred by the university to build the new parking garages, Kass said. Zone 1 parking-permit rates have not been raised in five years, Kass added.
The rate increase will also cover the debt of building future parking garages, shuttle costs and a rise in gas prices, among other expenses, Kass said.
"We will continue losing surface space to construction," Kass said, adding that eventually there will be more parking-garage spots than surface parking.
This year, 600 to 800 surface spaces of all types will be lost to construction, Kass said, which will leave 4,755 available Zone 1 spaces.
Looking for parking further from the center of campus, coming to campus in the afternoon and being on two waiting lists for parking permits are some of the things students, staff and faculty can do simultaneously to find a place to park, Kass and Graessle said.
"We've never had a situation where a person could not find a place (to park)," Graessle said.
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