 |
|
| Parking restrictions
to change in summer |
Carrie Baker
Business Affairs Beat
|
Peter Larkins | The
Appalachian
According to Parking and Traffic,
Stadium parking lot will only be open to faculty, staff, graduate
assistants and a limited number of students.
|
With Whitener parking
lot closing after graduation ceremonies this month, a reallocation
of parking lot access levels is inevitable.
Vice Chancellor for Business Affairs Jane P. Helm
said Monday the most noticeable change in parking next year will
be for Raley and Stadium lots.
Graduate assistants, faculty and staff currently
use Raley lot, while seniors and graduate students park in Stadium
lot. |
Graduate
assistants, faculty and staff currently use Raley lot, while seniors
and graduate students park in Stadium lot.
Helm said in order to accommodate those faculty and staff losing
their parking spaces in Whitener lot, Raley will be open to only
faculty and staff next year. Graduate assistants will subsequently
be moved to Stadium lot, leaving few spaces for graduate students
and seniors.
“The pushing is really coming in on the student lots, and Stadium
is considered the prime student parking,” Helm said. “There’s
a real cost to a university to provide parking. And while we don’t
like it, and I personally feel that students get the crummiest parking
spaces, someone has to pay.”
Director of Parking and Traffic Barry D. Sauls said Tuesday that
the 275 graduate assistant passes for Raley lot will be moved Stadium
lot, which sells 800 to 900 permits annually.
Graduate assistants in Legends parking lot and the Walker Hall lot
will also move to Stadium, Sauls said.
The remaining Stadium permits will be sold to graduate students
and seniors on the basis of seniority, Sauls said.
“You still have Stadium as a student area; there just won’t
be as many,” Sauls said.
Sauls said faculty and staff will use Legends, and the Walker lot
on Bodenheimer Drive will be closed next year due to construction
for the new student recreation center.
In addition to reallocations next year, Helm said she anticipates
an increase in parking permit prices.
“We’re operating at about a $150,000 deficit. The last
thing on earth that I ever want to do is raise parking. Especially
in a time when you are displacing people; it’s going to be
difficult to find parking. We don’t have a choice,” Helm
said.
Parking fines in escrow, due to a court case that has been in the
appeal phase since December 2001, have caused the deficit since
Appalachian State relies on parking fines and permit monies to pay
for repairs and new lots.
“We don’t have another source of revenue for parking,”
Helm said.
Helm said parking fine money has paid for projects such as the repaving
of Raley lot and State Farm lot. The increase in permit prices will
help compensate for the loss of the fine money.
“A car is really not required for you to come to Appalachian.
For you to get a degree here, you don’t have to have a car.
And if you can afford the car and you can afford the gas and you
can afford the insurance, you can afford to pay parking,” said
Helm.
“The reason we have to pay [for parking permits] period is
that we do not get state funding,” Sauls said.
Sauls said two proposals concerning parking next year have been
sent to the administration. The administration will then send their
recommendations to the Board of Trustees to vote on June 6.
One proposal suggests a flat fee of $156 for students and faculty
and staff, paying one-half of 1 percent of income. The other proposal
simply recommends a flat fee of $204 for everyone wishing to purchase
parking permits, Sauls said.
Sauls said these fees would apply to all parking areas excluding
the Rivers Street parking deck, which will remain at $500 per year. |
|
|
 |
 |
