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Stumble It!The KU Parking Department finalized plans for a new parking lot on west campus last week. The parking department has designed the lot to be a park-and-ride zone, where drivers can park their cars and ride buses onto campus.
The parking department hopes to not only attract more students to the new lot, but also faculty and staff as well. However, some KU faculty and staff members think the idea of trading their on-campus permits for ones off-campus is impractical. This could be a problem considering that the parking department has paid $10.5 million for the new lot.
"We haven't come up with any clear-cut answers yet, but we know we have to make the park-and-ride appear attractive for faculty and staff if we want to get them to use it," Tom Mulinazzi, chairman of the parking commission said.
The parking lot, which will be north of the soccer fields on Iowa and 23rd streets, will create 1,500 new spots for students, faculty and staff. Even though the parking department designed the lot to help reduce the traffic on campus, some faculty and staff members would rather stay on campus than be cut-off from their vehicle.
"Faculty members need to have access to their cars," Kathy Rose-Mockry, Program Director of the Emily Taylor Women's Resource Center said. "I know many faculty members who have to teach a class and then go off campus for a meeting; they don't want to be stranded on campus, waiting on a bus."
"I think the park-and-ride would be very beneficial for junior staff who already have trouble getting spots on campus," Paul Scott, KU French professor said. "At the same time, I can't imagine senior staff using this service."
While some staff members do not think that the park-and-ride system will work for faculty, the KU Parking Department is trying to find answers to this problem.
"One idea we've had is to lower the cost of park-and-ride permits for faculty and increase the cost of red, blue, and gold permits," Donna Hultine, Director of the KU Parking Department said.
Targeting faculty
As an added incentive, Hultine also said that if the new parking lot was successful with the faculty, they would not have to pay for bus passes.
"Essentially, we would take the extra money from the on-campus faculty permits and use that money to pay for the bus fees for the faculty using the park-and-ride," Hultine said.
Currently, the cheapest faculty permit is the red permit, which costs $170. While there have been no exact numbers, Hultine said that faculty and staff members who choose to use the park-and-ride system can expect to pay around $100.
While some members of the KU staff think that faculty will never use the park-and-ride system, Student Body President Nick Sterner said that it might take the faculty some time to see the value of the system.
"I don't think the park-and-ride system is going to be a huge success with the faculty right away. However, with the new multi-disciplinary center being built in west campus, faculty and staff will see that they are going to need a way to get to and from the center quickly," Sterner said.
Park-and-ride popular with students
Currently, the Lied Center is the only park-and-ride lot on campus. The Lied Center has approximately 1,000 spots available for parking. Of those spots, students living in the resident halls usually occupy 300 spaces.
Although the park-and-ride system has not been widely used by faculty and staff in the past, it is a very popular option among students. Since the parking department began offering the park-and-ride service in 1998, they have sold-out of park-and-ride permits every year with the exception of this year. Hultine said that the park-and-ride permits didn't sell out this year because of a flat fee increase, which raised all permits by $55.
Besides reducing the amount of traffic on campus, the new parking lot will also help promote the KU on Wheels bus service. The parking department hopes this lot will act as a stepping-stone in creating a more effective route for the entire campus.
"Ideally, we would like to have a continuous loop of buses where a bus would show up every six minutes," Hultine said.
"This is a big year for buses and parking on campus, big changes could soon be around the corner," Jessica Mortinger, transportation coordinator for KU on Wheels said.
The parking lot is sheduled to be completed by the beginning of the fall semester next year.
