Funding reason for parking woes

By Maurice O. Ndole
The Collegian

Shortage of funds is the reason behind the slow growth of parking on campus a university official said.

Fresno State Director of Public Safety David Moll said there are plans to build more parking stalls but the parking revenue base has not increased for several years. Moll said his department relies on revenue from the sale of parking permits to operate and they do not receive additional funding.

He said currently his department could not put up a new parking structure.

“The problem we have right now to put up a parking structure is we don’t have revenue,” Moll said. “We don’t even have enough money to borrow money.”

He said the department receives about $2.5 million every year from sales of parking permits. Out of the revenue received, about $1.5 million is used to pay for the daily operating expenses of the department such as salaries and maintenance of the golf carts.

Moll said citations, another source of revenue for the department, could only be used for specific purposes.

He said by law, money received from citations could not be used to upgrade parking lots. Revenue from citations is used to promote clean air projects such as the Red Bike and Rideshare Programs.

Moll said his department is in the process of directing traffic flow around campus electronically.

“We’re putting electronic counters on Lot Q so that it shuts off when it’s full,” he said.

The electronic counters are already operational in parking Lot Q. The counters will notify students driving to the lot when all parking stalls are taken and save them from circling the lots with hopes of finding open spots. Moll, however, said the counters would not be installed in all parking lots around campus because they’re costly.

But some students think the university is not doing enough to solve the problem.

In an unscientific survey conducted at the beginning of the semester, 45 out of 60 students said parking on campus was not sufficient. And 16 students cited parking as a major problem on campus.

Other students used words such as ‘outrageous’, ‘insane’ and ‘horrible’ to describe their perception of parking difficulties students experience on campus in their responses to a survey question “what do you think about the parking situation on campus?”

Accounting major Mattie Parker, said the university should build parking garages and provide shuttles from parking lots to ease the parking congestion.

Junior psychology major Paul Williams described the parking situation as terrible. He said the university should increase the number of parking lots closer to classes.

Senior communications major Dartangon Shack shared Williams’ views.

“[Parking] sucks because most students have to park far away from class,” Shack said. “They need to create more parking spaces for students because they probably sell more permits than the number of parking stalls available”

According to a report from the accounting office, 12,073 students bought student parking permits this semester. Out of this number, 9,595 students bought the fall semester parking permits, while 2,478 students bought annual parking permits.

Moll acknowledged that parking was a problem on campus and said his department was working toward improving the situation.

He said currently there are 5,503 student-parking stalls on campus, less than half the number of the student-parking permits sold.

He said the university is always working toward improving the parking situation for students. He said over the years, most of the funds spent to improve parking have gone toward improving student parking stalls than the parking lots used by faculty and staff.

Moll said the university plans to expand Lots A and J on the east side of the campus. He said the expansion is expected to start at the end of this year and during summer.

He said sometimes while observing parking security monitors from his office, he has seen students circling filled parking lots such as Lot E near the Henry Madden Library in search of an open slot while there were many empty stalls on other parking lots such as Lot Q near Barstow Avenue on the north side of the campus.

He said there are always parking stalls available for students in many parking lots around the campus but students prefer parking in areas such as Lot E over others and causing congestion.

Moll advised students to arrive at school early and wear comfortable shoes to ensure they are not inconvenienced whenever they have to park their cars in lots that are far away from their classes.

College of Social Science AS Senator Isaac Lopez said the university should start a ridesharing program that would provide students with transportation to campus. Such a program would reduce the number of students driving to campus.

Currently Fresno State has a ridesharing program, which gives students with rideshare permits priority to park on Lot E from 6 a.m. to 10 a.m. Parking officials located at the USU pavilion said they usually process up-to 200 rideshare permits every semester. They permits are given out to students at free of charge.

Fresno State is not the only school experiencing parking problems. According to California State University, Fullerton Web site, the school has started building a parking structure for students.

Universities bigger than Fresno State such as University of California, Davis is also tackling the problem in different ways.

The student government at the University of California, Davis provides its students with a seven-bus transportation service around the campus. The service, which costs the student body about $ 3 million a year, is given to the students free of charge.

Fresno State Associated Students President Jennifer Reimer said her government did not have plans of providing such a service to students but she was willing to explore the possibilities.

Reimer said her government operates under a budget of about $500,000.

Moll said his office has also considered the possibility of providing students with transportation service around the campus.

“We looked into shuttle buses and we found that it was not feasible because of money,” Moll said.

He said his department has started a task force, which will look for ways to solve parking and transportation problems at Fresno State. He said the task force welcomes ideas from all members of the Fresno State community.

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