Limited free parking persists as UA, city debate control

An estimated 660 parking spaces in the immediate UA campus vicinity will continue to be free until the City of Tucson and university resolve their differences, according to officials from both sides.

The disputed parking spaces - many of them on First and Second Streets and Mabel Avenue, immediately north of Speedway Boulevard - have no present parking restrictions.

That may continue into the beginning of next year, said Chris Leighton, Tucson's Parking Program coordinator and engineer.

Last month's meeting of Transportation Enterprise Area Management (TEAM) - a 16-member committee comprised of campus area merchants, neighborhoods, the university and city officials - was to discuss issues separate from those parking spaces, said Marlis Davis, the UA's Parking and Transportation Services director.

That bodes well for those students and campus staff lucky enough to obtain those spaces during daytime hours.

But both Davis and Leighton said they envision a paid parking system for the entire campus area one day, and urge students and commuters to consider the alternatives.

"The UA and City of Tucson maintain an amicable and working relationship and we continue to meet on how to best-adjudicate a parking system," Davis said.

Paid parking "is just a price of driving to school or business, and supply-and-demand is heavily involved," she added.

Davis offered several alternatives, including parking at nearby church lots and a Tucson Unified School District lot, for $40 a year. UA Parking and Transportation also subsidizes SunTran city bus passes for a cost of about $650,000 a year, she said. Students enrolled for at least three credits are eligible for subsidized passes.

Presently, the university charges about $160 a school year for each of the approximately 4,800 Zone 1 permits it issues. It also issues about 3,200 garage and Main Gate permits, which, because of their concentric location to campus facilities, each cost about $390 a year, Davis said.

Anyone looking for a space near campus will find a multitude of signs reading "Residential Permit Parking, 7 a.m. to 4 p.m." Local residents are able to purchase annual permits for a small administrative fee - about $2.50 - directly from the city.

"The residential permit system aims to avoid any abuse or discrimination, and ensures parking access for campus-area residents," Leighton said.

The city is also considering a means of selling surplus residential permits at a market price to non-residents where neighborhood associations consent, he said.

Still, while some students and campus staff express disdain for any form of paid parking, the writing may be on the wall.

"We were second in the country (after Georgetown district in Washington, D.C.,) to implement a city parking permit system back in 1984, and so other cities often look at our system," Leighton said.

He said he remembers the drill all too well. The civil engineering UA graduate was accustomed to circling First and Second streets repeatedly until a spot opened up. But the problem of the same number of cars seeking fewer and fewer free spots creates traffic congestion, particularly since area merchants rely on vehicle turnover, he said.

"The merchants demand aggressive enforcement of parking meters since those stalls are a pipeline to their business," Leighton said.

Marco Guerrero, a media arts junior and area resident, is caught in the middle.

"I already pay enough in the form of tuition," he said. "Nobody I know of on this street (Helen Street) has bought a pass. They just look for free spaces too."

But after being cited with three tickets totaling $60 in fines, he said he's reconsidering.