On Tuesday, the Emerald reported that students without parking permits now have even fewer places to park (“DPS shuts down six pay-to-park machines,” ODE, Jan. 31). Eighty-seven spaces along East 15th Avenue are reserved for faculty members with parking permits and the lot next to the EMU is reserved for visitors. Students will now only be allowed to park in 50 metered spots along University Street across from McArthur Court – spots that previously allowed students with permits to override the meters.
The first issue with the shutdown of the solar-powered pay-to-park machines is the fact that the University shelled out around $60,000 for the original purchase of those machines. The Department of Public Safety claims that the pay stations were not reliable and experienced frequent breakdowns. It is disheartening to think that the University did not fully research the reliability of these parking machines before spending tens of thousands of University dollars to purchase them.
Furthermore, even if mechanical difficulties mandated the shutdown of brand new parking machines, it is unfair that those 87 parking spaces are now unavailable to the average student. DPS Administrative Lieutenant Joan Saylor said the shutdown of pay-to-park machines won’t have much of an effect on students without permits, because those drivers can still park on University Street. However, University Street parking already poses problems. The metered spots along University street are not only almost always full, but they require a pocketful of change. One of the best benefits of the pay-to-park stations was the fact that students could use change, cash or a credit/debit card in order to pay for parking. Metered spots offer no such options.
Almost every other nonmetered parking spot on University Street, or within a one or two mile radius of campus, is only a two-hour spot. Considering the fact that students need an approximate 10-15 minutes to walk from their car to class and back, a two hour-parking spot is useful only to students attending a single class. Students who drive to school and need to stay on campus for more than an hour must either park miles away from campus or return to their car every two hours in order to move it.
Although students should certainly be encouraged to use alternate forms of transportation, such as the bus or a bicycle, there is no reason that student drivers in the middle of winter must grapple with the daily hassle of parking on campus. Thanks to the removal of pay-to-park meters right next to campus, even occasional drivers are now unable to spend their quarters to have the rare joy of parking right next to their class on a particularly rainy day.
If the University is willing to shell out $60,000 for faulty parking meters, perhaps it should re-evaluate the feasibility of building a parking garage. This idea has been kicked around in various forms over the years, including talk about siting a garage with a new basketball arena or putting one across Franklin Boulevard at the Riverfront Research Park. Yet with the state and the University consistently tightening their proverbial belts, parking plans are continually bypassed.
As the University continues planning eastward expansion and the city of Eugene evaluates options for the Walnut Node redevelopment project, both entities should give serious attention to the parking issue. Students should also consider helping to finance such construction.