Commentary

The Big Crunch

Year in and year out, parking around the UO campus is no simple matter; year in and year out, little has been done to change this.

Enrollment goes up, campus expands, and demand for parking rises. Despite being a growing university in almost every way, the availability of parking at the University of Oregon has not risen along with it. A lack of parking spaces, coupled with rising permit costs, and the UO Administration's continued inability to find a solution has produced a frustrating climate for those who drive on, around, and to campus.

Every year the Parking Department of the Office of Public Safety and the University Administration grapple with the perpetual parking shortage and with possible solutions. However, where OPS seems to be doing its part to alleviate the parking burden, the administration's actions do not indicate the same commitment.

Permit sales, meters and the enforcement thereof fall under the jurisdiction of the parking department of the Office of Public Safety. This department is self-sufficient, meaning its funding comes from permit sales and parking citations, not from tuition or taxes. Though OPS itself patrols parking lots and issues citations, it is the Parking Department that pays for the upkeep and operation of parking facilities. In general, the University Administration is not an active player in this agreement.

The present parking crunch surfaced as a topic of discussion around 1996. It was this year that meter rates rose from 50 to 65 cents an hour and citation fees were upped to $10, double that of the previous year. The following year, parking permits would triple in cost, from $25 per term to $75. In May of 1996, the University considered lifting the overnight parking burden by storing students' cars at the Autzen Stadium parking lot, shuttling students back and forth in what was later dismissed as a economically and logistically impossible venture. In the fall of 1997, construction of the Knight Law School began, displacing 190 of 590 spaces in the Bean overnight parking facility. Later supplemented with a 130-vehicle capacity lot near Columbia and Moss streets, overnight parking lots were so packed that University Housing instated a parking permit lottery system.

In 1996, there were 2,820 parking spots on campus: 1,200 available for students from a pool of 5,924 permits. Today, there are about 3,200 spaces of which students may park in about 1,300 to 1,400. According to OPS, there are an additional 500 metered spots Additionally, there are 500 metered spots, according to OPS.

Though the number of spots has increased over the past several years, it has nowhere near matched the demand for student parking, nor the number of permits sold. Since 1990, space has increased by 8 percent, where permit sales have increased by 53 percent. Complaints about a lack of parking existed in 1990 as they do now. A key problem is that there is nowhere for the University to expand.

"We're a landlocked University in the middle of a city," said Rand Stamm, OPS programming and transportation manager. "When the University expands, they want to expand with academic and research facilities. This puts parking in a difficult position."

The administration's attitude seems to be that the students must do their part and fight the parking crisis by riding their bikes to campus. Students have to, but administration doesn't.

In the February 17, 1997 Oregon Daily Emerald, Vice-President Dan Williams defended his parking ease: "I don't have to have that space. I could ride my bike, but that's not very practical in terms of where my time is used."

Other administrators are a bit more flexible. "I have ridden my bike to work in the past quite often," Stamm says. "I recently had back surgery, so I don't at this time. Sometimes I carpool with a friend or take LTD. If my wife has the car that day, she drops me off."

Ironically, when Stamm does drive to work, he doesn't even get a premium parking spot like Williams does. Stamm has to hunt like everyone else. "I get here at 7:30, 7:45 at the latest. The closest I can park is three to four blocks from the office." On a personal, pragmatic level, it makes sense that the administration would be uninterested in solving the parking crisis. Each high-level administrator has a reserved spot next to Johnson Hall. They don't have to hunt for a parking spot and end up six blocks away like the typical student or faculty member. Plus, parking generates a good deal of transferable revenue, the bulk of which would be eaten up by the investment cost of a new parking facility. And though the parking program is self-sustained, the University still has the authority to dip into this fund and disperse the money as they see fit.

In 1985, a permit for a year's worth of daytime parking cost about what it does for one term of daytime parking in 1999. In the late 1980Us, demand for on-campus parking skyrocketed to such a degree that the University announced plans in 1988 to build a parking garage, to be placed near the School of Music.

Vice-President Williams signed the papers to loan $170,000 from the parking fund to the Intercollegiate Athletic Department in 1988, for development of the Moshofsky Center money initially generated by the increased parking costs to build the fabled multi-level parking garage. The interest-free loan was not paid back until it was discovered as outstanding in the 1995-96 school year, at which point the athletic department tried to claim the loan as a gift. The AD was then required to pay back the loan in two yearly installments over 1995 and 1996.

Another, smaller loan was paid to the communications department, who promptly paid back the loan with interest. Most of the rest of the parking fund was largely used to purchase LTD passes for faculty and pay the salaries of campus security. The money generated 700 new parking spots, 500 of which were lost as the various construction projects of recent years began.

It is now the end of 1999, and there is clearly no multi-storied parking facility on or around campus. Despite the parking fee increase, the overwhelming support of students, teachers, the Oregon Public Employee's Union and a pronounced need for the structure, the garage was never built.

The University scrapped their plans the same year the project was proposed, citing a handful of complaints that construction of the garage would increase noise and traffic near the School of Music. Parking costs remained at the newly raised rate despite the absence of the parking structure.

Many spaces and lots have been lost either temporarily or permanently to campus construction and renovation, such as the Knight Law School, which crept onto part of the Bean overnight parking lot. Because of disastrous parking losses, parking spots eliminated by construction must be replaced elsewhere on campus; it is even a factored cost in a contractor's budget. OPS also negotiates with construction firms to determine where they will park construction vehicles so as to further lessen parking inconveniences. Trucks working on the Student Recreation Center parked on the soccer field. Fortunately, most new construction projects such as the Gilbert Hall renovation are not located near large parking facilities.

The recently announced slate of construction projects show that the administration is anxious to expand the University in the way of academic, research and athletic facilities. One might expect this to increase interest in the University and boost enrollment, which then leads to a need for even more parking. The longer the program goes unsolved, coupled with an ever-increasing enrollment, means a desperate need for a large parking garage like the one scrapped in 1988. As Stamm puts it, the administration will have to "seriously look at a garage" in the future.

Several parking upgrades have been considered and/or undertaken throughout the last half-decade, some feasible, others ludicrous and expensive. True to bureaucratic form, the administration assembled a task force to tackle the problem, ultimately failing to resolve the issue.

Some steps have been made. Construction on the new law school displaced parking, yet a parking replacement stipulation in the plans actually led to an increase in parking spaces, both from replacement spots and the newer Columbia and Moss parking lot behind Williams Bakery. The law school parking lot is also substantial. Realistically, there are usually a handful of parking spots available at any given time, so long as convenience and proximity are not issues.

That so little in the parking situation has changed or improved in the last several years indicates apathy and disinterest on the part of the University Administration. If this was considered a pressing issue, they would have dedicated themselves to resolving or improving the situation, as they have done with pursuing multicultural recruitment and keeping tuition costs low. The administration isn't a cold, bureaucratic figurehead- they just don't see the parking crisis as much of an issue; perhaps this because they are by and large not personally affected by the parking crunch.

Finding a solution to the parking crisis needs to be a priority issue, whether that solution be the construction of more parking facilities, retooling the parking permit program, or whatever method is reasonable. There is an overwhelming need, demand and support for a garage-type facility, especially as the University continues to grow. Ten years ago, there was massive support for an on-campus garage. The fact that the same arguments and complaints continue unchanged year after year demonstrates that the parking crisis is a real problem for the campus community, and that the administration needs to finally step in and do something about it.

Brian Boone, a junior majoring in Journalism, is a staff writer for the Oregon Commentator