Changes have been made this year in regard to purple parking permits on University of Idaho’s campus.
Parking and Transportation Services placed a cap on the number of purple parking permits sold, due to such close capacity, and will now sell only purple economy passes, Parking Information Specialist Robert Mitchell said. Economy passes were created for students who only drive their cars on occasion.
“The reason we’ve had to make this change is because the purple spaces, as a whole, are running at 94 percent utilization,” Mitchell said.
Mitchell said the goal for the university is to stay at 85 percent, which would allow for a healthy rate of oversell. Mitchell said capping the number of spaces at the maximum number of 475 would create a negative reaction.
“What we don’t want to do is cap the selling limit at the max number of parking spots,” Mitchell said. “Because at any given time a lot of people are either on vacation, on an academic trip, etc. Then what would end up happening is that once we sell out of parking passes (Parking and Transportation Services) would be denying people a permit, but they would be walking by and seeing empty spaces.”
Mitchell said the university’s strategic plan of increasing student enrollment plays a large role in the congestion around campus.
“With increasing enrollment, almost all of the concentration of activity is going to be happening in the core campus,” Mitchell said. “That situation is just going to get worse, and it’s not solving itself naturally — as enrollment increases, that area is just going to get more and more pressure.”
Mitchell said a contributing factor for the economy parking was the amount of cars which seemingly never moved, and only served to take up space.
“Last year, when the snow was at its worst, we noticed a lot of cars had three feet of snow on them, and flat tires,” Mitchell said. “That was a big red flag. That means a lot of the cars in the core aren’t even being used. What if we could give a more affordable option to people who only use their vehicles to go home on weekends, or on break? Allowing the core campus to be for those who use their vehicles on a more regular basis.”
This was the reasoning behind the implementation of purple economy passes.
Mitchell said as students settle in and become more regular about their routines, it will be easier to assess the parking system’s effectiveness.
Mitchell said while parking is currently hectic, their options are limited because building new parking structures is expensive, time consuming and creates major commuting complications for the residents.
“The cost of a parking garage, per space, is upwards of $35,000 per spot,” Mitchell said. “Also, apparently (building a new parking lot) is a nightmare for maintenance, security and management.”
Mitchell said that while the ideology behind the purple economy parking lot is stable, there is still room for improvement.
Quentin Gaff, president of Alpha Kappa Lambda fraternity, echoed the feelings of students who feel the economy passes have placed an obstacle in their way.
“It’s definitely annoying,” Gaff said. “What if somebody needs to retrieve books or utensils before a class, or simply run an errand that needs to be completed quickly? Now it’s a 25-minute walk uphill just to get to your car, and another walk uphill to get back home.”
Gaff said he feels the university is not properly accounting for the targeted increase of students depicted by the strategic plan.
“(The university) is trying to increase enrollment, and we’re trying to increase the numbers of Greeks coming in,” Gaff said. “But they’re not making any new space. It seems like they want to add all these new people, but they don’t want to put in what it takes to account for that increase.”
Andrew Ward can be reached at [email protected] or on Twitter @WardOfTheWorlds