UA to lose 1,000 parking spaces by fall


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UA to lose 1,000 parking spaces by fall

By: Shain Bergan

Issue date: 2/19/08 Section: News

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Media Credit: Alan Walsh

Patrick Kass, director of Parking and Transportation Services, delivers a presentation on the budget in the Catalina Room of the Student Union Memorial Center last Tuesday. The department's Park and Ride program is costing the department more money than PTS revenue being brought in from parking permits alone.

As the UA campus continues to grow in population and expand in size, students are given more campus resources, from residence halls to recreational services. It is these same students and faculty, however, who are seeing the brunt of the other side of expansion in hundreds of lost parking spaces each semester.

When the decision was made to build new residence halls on the southwest and southeast corners of campus, the strategy included how best to deal with the almost 1,000 parking spaces being lost next semester.

Parking and Transportation Services is also dealing with the loss of spaces from the Student Recreation Center expansion project.

The problem is not a new issue for PTS. Over the past eight years, PTS has lost a total of 2,723 parking spaces, said PTS director Patrick Kass.

"It's already pretty difficult to find a spot," said Deanna Harvey, a mathematics education junior. "A lot of people have to change their schedules and show up early just to find a spot."

When the university undertakes construction projects, the new structures typically take the place of nearby surface parking lots. While PTS continues to build new lots and add parking garages in the place of surface lots, the rate of loss continually outweighs the rate of gained spaces, Kass said.

Although PTS will be adding 300 to 400 new spaces in Zone 1 and South of Sixth Street lots, the university will lose an estimated 1,200 more by next semester, said Bill Davidson, marketing specialist for PTS.

While the issue itself is not new, the current concern over campus parking comes from the accumulation of lost spaces over the years.

Continued...

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