February 9, 2004
Member Present: Paul Bixby, Thomas Censullo, Donna Daniels, Diane Fagan, Steve Gahagans, Brandon Green, Reggie Houser, Jay Huneycutt, Carol Lane, Bill Mock, Bonnie Powell, Luti Salisbury and Gary Smith. Also present were Carrie Coppernoll from the Traveler, Gina King from University Relations, Adam Fowler of Non-traditional and Commuter students, Tracie Dungan from the Democrat/Gazette and Elaine Quinn, acting secretary.
The minutes of December 3rd were approved.
Report on Current Parking Status - Gary Smith
1. The 2003 summer maintenance was completed last week.
2. 2004 summer maintenance projects:
a. Constructing a lot at Whitham and Douglas.
b. Gregg St. lot should be completed by commencement.
c. Virginia/California, one house is down and another will be demolished to make room for a gravel lot this summer.
d. Phoenix House- east side gravel lot will be paved this summer.
e. Adding five handicap spaces to the Graduate Education circle.
f. Peabody Drive is a one lane, two direction drive. With the addition of five parking spaces, part of the drive will be widened to two lanes to allow cars to pass
3. Lot 2 will close this summer to become a pedestrian area, Psychological Clinic patient spaces will be moved to the new spaces north of Peabody Hall.
4. South Deck: Looking at using a revenue control system like the one used at the University of Texas, Austin on its gated deck system. Our current deck is permitted and metered. Under the new plan, a permit holder would have a proximity device that would allow entry through the gate and then park anywhere in the deck. On leaving, the permit holder pulls up to the gate, it opens and the vehicle exits. The hourly parker would push a button at the gated entry, take a ticket and then park anywhere in the deck. Prior to exiting the deck, he would either pay at a cashier station or at a pay-on-foot station. This system would be more flexible and generates more revenue. 500 spaces will open in December with the remainder opening in April 2005. This year there will be a million and a half dollars in debt service. There will be a two story building on front of the new deck. Transit and Parking will move their dispatch office and parking control to the north side of the building. There will be about 5000 square feet of retail space available on the south side of the building.
5. Construction on south side of campus:
a. Chiller plant expansion: lot 74 will be staging area to start this spring.
b. January 2005 construction of the Center for Academic Excellence in lot 51.
c. April 2005 construction of the Graduate School of Business, Walker Hall, in lot 52.
d. Lot 65 will be the main staging area for all the projects.
6. Chemistry renovation will begin this summer and take about 18 months
7. The North Quad Housing will open this coming fall.
8. The new Health Center will open in October.
9. A Program Advisor position has been approved for Parking. This position will be responsible for the Customer Service counter and Customer accounts and be available to deal with customers who want to discuss their concerns with a supervisor.
10. Maple Street, the city has requested another review of the project drawings. It will probably be a summer project since no decision has been made yet.
11. This summer lots 33 and 33A, across from Grad Ed, will be combined into one lot for better traffic flow.
12. Gary has requested the city to remove the parking off Douglas Street, especially during the Maple Street project. Reggie Houser said that because of the construction around Garland/Cleveland that Cleveland has become a parking lot. The parkers need to be notified to clear Cleveland Street before it is reopened.
13. Lot 26. It was designed to be utilized by visitors but faculty and staff are parking in the meters. The TPT Committee voted in the fall to have the Administration ask its employees to not park in the lot but that didn't work. Gary has sent several different proposals but none of them were accepted. The latest proposal has the west row of the lot be reserved spaces with priority going to handicapped employees of Hunt Hall and the Administration Building. The middle row will be visitor only meters and the row on the east side will be reserved for visitors to the offices in Hunt Hall and would require permits.
Old Business
1. Handicapped parking. The subcommittee is meeting this Friday to determine how to implement a case-by-case review of requests for special handicap parking.
2. Habitual Violators: Reggie checked with the Judicial Board and they agreed to handle the habitual student violators on a case-by-case method.
3. Lot 67. Gary doesn't have his complete meter utilization report but when counts were done on the permits in the lot, it was found that the majority of them were on campus students living in the residence halls or in the Greek houses. Reggie also had some counts done and found that the lot wasn't utilized except between 5 and 7 p.m. Gary will get his final counts and other information and put it on the listserve.
New Business
1. NW Quad Parking. Reggie commented that there would be a Housing Fair in a couple of weeks for students to sign-up for Northwest Quad Housing. Students are asking about the parking in that area. It was proposed that lot 41A (366 spaces) all be Resident Reserved. There will be 608 beds in the NW Quad. He proposed that lot 37, which is still the staging area, will be both Resident Reserved and Faculty/Staff parking. Reggie met with student representatives and two suggestions were offered: a) If the Quad is filled totally with upper classmen, then the suggestion would be that lot 41 (north of Reid Hall) become On Campus so every freshman resident in Reid will have an opportunity to park there. B) If the Quad is not all upper classmen then all student lots in the area will be Resident Reserved ( lots 41A, 41 and part of 37). Lot 37 will need to be redesigned because of the construction on Garland Avenue. Fulbright Dining Hall is also planned to be demolished. Brandon Green recommended that a town hall meeting be held with the Reid Hall residents to get their input on the suggested parking for next year.
2. Debit Card Refund. The department has debit cards that can be used in the multiple spaced meters (deck, lot 26 and lot 67). They cost $25 and have $25 worth of time on them. The cards have a message printed on them that Transit and Parking is not responsible for lost or damaged cards and the card is non-refundable. In the past few weeks there have been several customers who have returned their cards stating they did not work. Most of the cards are no longer readable so Transit and Parking cannot determine if there is any money remaining on the card. The information is stored on the debit card not on the computer. Most of the members felt that we should stick to the no refund policy, some said use own judgment.
3. Permit fees and fines. Gary passed out the proposal for a 5% increase in parking permit fees and a 10¢ a credit hour increase in the student transit fee and suggested increases in a few parking violation charges. Based onthe FY05 parking budget, including the payment of debt service on the south deck, parking will be a half a million in debt at the end of FY05. For the last few years the Board of Trustees has limited parking permit fee increases to 5%. Bonnie Powell from University Relations felt like the increase would hurt employees since health insurance premiums were increasing and there had been no significant raises in the last few years. The proposed transit fee of 10¢ an hour will go before the Student Fee Review Board. This year transit added three buses to the night route, extended the night route until 10:30 pm and added four routes on Saturday. Diane Fagan moved to accept the increased fee proposal except that Faculty/Staff permit prices remain the same price in support of the employees and increase the student fees as follows: On Campus - $60, Off Campus and motorcycle - $45, Resident Reserved - $175 and Deck Resident Reserved - $300. Luti Salisbury seconded the motion and the motion passed. Diane said the students were more able to pay the increase than the employees. The recommendation first goes to Don Pederson, then to the Chancellor and then is reviewed by the Board of Trustees.
4. Scooters treated as bicycles or motorcycles. There was some discussion on the safety issues of having scooters driven on sidewalks to access bicycle racks. Scooter riders are concerned that their scooter could be stolen from a parking lot since the scooter is light enough to be picked up and put in a truck. Reggie moved to table the discussion until the next meeting and that it also be presented to the Safety Committee. It was seconded and passed.
5. Gary showed the committee a new kind of permit that the department is reviewing for use in FY06. The permit is attached to the windshield but can be transferred to another vehicle. The permit also has a bar code and can be scanned by the handheld computers used to issue parking tickets, reducing the permit number entry errors. It was suggested to first let faculty and staff experiment with the permits to see how they liked it and if there were any disadvantages
The next meeting is March 11 at 2:30 pm. Meeting was adjourned at 4:30 pm.